TS5376 Have new dell xps system and cannot install I tunes: "Apple Application Support was not found"...Error 2 (Windows error 2)....any ideas??

Question

I am having tremendous difficulty installing I Tunes onto my new Dell XPS (Windows 8). First it downloaded but my library wasn't there and it would not recognize my ipod.
Then I uninstalled it and now it won't reinstall saying:
Apple Application Support was not found.
Apple applicationSupport is required to run iTunes. Please uninstall iTunes, then install iTunes again.
Error 2 (Windows error 2)
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling a few times.......not working.
Any ideas??

Answer 1

With the Error 2, let's try a standalone Apple Application Support install. It still might not install, but fingers crossed any error messages will give us a better idea of the underlying cause of the issue.
Download and save a copy of the iTunesSetup.exe (or iTunes64setup.exe) installer file to your hard drive:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
Download and install the free trial version of WinRAR:
http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm
Right-click the iTunesSetup.exe (or iTunes64Setup.exe), and select "Extract to iTunesSetup" (or "Extract to iTunes64Setup"). WinRAR will expand the contents of the file into a folder called "iTunesSetup" (or "iTunes64Setup").
Go into the folder and doubleclick the AppleApplicationSupport.msi to do a standalone AAS install.
Does it install properly for you?
If instead you get an error message during the install, let us know what it says. (Precise text, please.)