Hello,
I have had the custom-built PC I own for almost two years. The OS is Win 7. The version of iTunes I am running is 10.6 (up to date). I am also running (or was until last night) Office '07. Up until I activated my iCloud account, everything seemed to be hunky-dory. Last Thursday night I attempted an iTunes/iPhone 4 sync by USB. If you are familiar w/iTunes, you know the sync first backs up and then goes through several sync steps. When my sync got to "Syncing Contacts," the sync appeard to get stuck, but not frozen. There were no program not responding errors. Maybe had I let it run its course things would have been fine, but in the past a sync would cycle in a few minutes or less. This was taking several hours. So, I ejected the iPhone and tried it again unchecking Sync Contacts under the Info tab in iTunes. I did this thinking "the contacts are already on the phone and in Outlook, so I'm only compromising any new contact infor being uploaded to Outlook." Bad idea. The sync worked quickly, got new music on the phone, etc., but the contacts were gone from the phone and Outlook. So I turned on the Sync Contacts in iCloud on the phone and the contacts downloaded to the phone, but in Outlook, instead of them being in the regular Contacts folder, they were in the iCloud contacts folder. This is not what I want. I want those contacts in a version for Outlook (and the phone for that matter) that will not dissapear from Outlook and the phone if I turn off iCloud, and it appears that is the way things are now since I activated my cloud account. What I desire is to have an email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Live Mail) that will allow me to sync my phone with iTunes and any new contact info I have added to my phone contacts (usually how I add new contacts) or the client contacts will transfer. It appears the only client for Windows iTunes will allow this to happen with is Outlook, which I had.
Yesterday, I called a local PC repair shop and expected to explain my problem, get a "yes" or "no" on whether or not they could help, and then bring it in for repair (for lack of a better term). The person told me that he believed the problem to lie with Outlook and that there is a "glitch" if you will with Office/Outlook that when multiple programs (in my case iTunes/iCloud/Outlook) start competing with eachother in a sync, Outlook starts "punching holes in the files that contain contacts and calendars." I figured, "Hey, sounds good to me. i'll get OL07 off my machine and I'll be good again." I knew that in doing this I would still need to find a replacement. I did also ask myself the question, "If OL is the problem, why did the syncs work fine until the time when iCloud account activation entered the scene?" Then last night I was looking at an Apple article on how to set up iCloud with a PC. It said that in order to access email, contacts, and calendars, OL07 or OL10 is required.
So now I am where I am, think of trying to reinstall OL07 (w/o the rest of Office and just installing Openoffice or Libreoffice) or getting Office 2010.
Two last things, the main reason I want to have an iCloud account activated is because I want to have the Find My iPhone feature activated in case I lose it. Also, I have noticed that since this problem has started, OL does not want to completey shut down when I exit out of it. It appears to, but any time I shut down my machine to reboot, I get a warning that it is still running and do I want to force a shutdown and risk losing anything. Also, after exiting out of OL, I can bring up the task manager and the OL .exe file is still up and running. Also, down in the system tray there is a gray OL icon with an circled X on it. I cannot exit out of it...it's just there unless I reboot my machine. And, anytime I launch OL, Send/Receive gets stuck at 83%.
Any ideas?
I have had the custom-built PC I own for almost two years. The OS is Win 7. The version of iTunes I am running is 10.6 (up to date). I am also running (or was until last night) Office '07. Up until I activated my iCloud account, everything seemed to be hunky-dory. Last Thursday night I attempted an iTunes/iPhone 4 sync by USB. If you are familiar w/iTunes, you know the sync first backs up and then goes through several sync steps. When my sync got to "Syncing Contacts," the sync appeard to get stuck, but not frozen. There were no program not responding errors. Maybe had I let it run its course things would have been fine, but in the past a sync would cycle in a few minutes or less. This was taking several hours. So, I ejected the iPhone and tried it again unchecking Sync Contacts under the Info tab in iTunes. I did this thinking "the contacts are already on the phone and in Outlook, so I'm only compromising any new contact infor being uploaded to Outlook." Bad idea. The sync worked quickly, got new music on the phone, etc., but the contacts were gone from the phone and Outlook. So I turned on the Sync Contacts in iCloud on the phone and the contacts downloaded to the phone, but in Outlook, instead of them being in the regular Contacts folder, they were in the iCloud contacts folder. This is not what I want. I want those contacts in a version for Outlook (and the phone for that matter) that will not dissapear from Outlook and the phone if I turn off iCloud, and it appears that is the way things are now since I activated my cloud account. What I desire is to have an email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Live Mail) that will allow me to sync my phone with iTunes and any new contact info I have added to my phone contacts (usually how I add new contacts) or the client contacts will transfer. It appears the only client for Windows iTunes will allow this to happen with is Outlook, which I had.
Yesterday, I called a local PC repair shop and expected to explain my problem, get a "yes" or "no" on whether or not they could help, and then bring it in for repair (for lack of a better term). The person told me that he believed the problem to lie with Outlook and that there is a "glitch" if you will with Office/Outlook that when multiple programs (in my case iTunes/iCloud/Outlook) start competing with eachother in a sync, Outlook starts "punching holes in the files that contain contacts and calendars." I figured, "Hey, sounds good to me. i'll get OL07 off my machine and I'll be good again." I knew that in doing this I would still need to find a replacement. I did also ask myself the question, "If OL is the problem, why did the syncs work fine until the time when iCloud account activation entered the scene?" Then last night I was looking at an Apple article on how to set up iCloud with a PC. It said that in order to access email, contacts, and calendars, OL07 or OL10 is required.
So now I am where I am, think of trying to reinstall OL07 (w/o the rest of Office and just installing Openoffice or Libreoffice) or getting Office 2010.
Two last things, the main reason I want to have an iCloud account activated is because I want to have the Find My iPhone feature activated in case I lose it. Also, I have noticed that since this problem has started, OL does not want to completey shut down when I exit out of it. It appears to, but any time I shut down my machine to reboot, I get a warning that it is still running and do I want to force a shutdown and risk losing anything. Also, after exiting out of OL, I can bring up the task manager and the OL .exe file is still up and running. Also, down in the system tray there is a gray OL icon with an circled X on it. I cannot exit out of it...it's just there unless I reboot my machine. And, anytime I launch OL, Send/Receive gets stuck at 83%.

Any ideas?