" Ok, I tried a test. I downloaded iTunes for Windows under Virtual PC on my Mac.
It looks 98% the same. Functions the same. But under VPC, it is slow and there is some audio skipping playing internet radio (I am on a campus LAN with gigabit connection and a dual 1.25 G4, so I can imagine slower connections and processors would only make this much worse).
But it worked and they're 2.5 months earlier than they predicted.
John G. "

BTW - if you're using Windows XP (native or under VPC) MS released 4 more 'critical updates' recently - get them via windowsupdate.com.

" Mike, Here is my initial take on iTunes for Windows.
The general look and feel of the application is pretty much the same between the Mac and Windows iTunes. The one performance difference that I have noted when comparing running iTunes on my Mac (MDD Dual G4/1Gig) to running iTunes on my Windows machine at work (P4/1.4Gig), is it seems that I'm getting a lot more network drops/rebuffer attempts when accessing 128 kbps stations at work than I do at home. I don't have any problems as long as I restrict my listening to lower bandwidth stations.
At home, I'm running a cable modem connected to an airport (not airport extreme) base station compared to a wired 100baseT Ethernet network connected to a T3 line, so I wouldn't expect bandwidth to be a problem.
-Matt"

" Mike: I have downloaded and installed iTunes 4.1 on my office PC. It's a P4 1.6 768ram running Windows XP. It installed and runs great. I ripped a CD into MP3s and they sounded great. The drive is only a 12x as it is my burner, but it seemed to go pretty well. I did not sit and watch it so I don't know the speed at which it ripped. I turned around and then burnt them to a CD-R and it plays perfectly in my office Mac. Burn time was around 4 minutes for the 46 minutes of music.
Overall, I'm impressed. I have not had a chance to get into the "nitty-gritty", but that can wait until I have some more free time.
--adam"

" Just installed itunes for windows on my compaq athlon 2200 running windows XP with 640 MB ram, attached to my tv (use it as my multimedia hub; ie recording TV). Download was a snap, install a breeze (didn't even ask for email info or anything). Asked to restart after install- done.
Opening it up for the first time runs through the same info as itunes for OS X, offers to look for songs and offers to take straight to itunes music store (I declined both offers). Connected to my libraries on both my airport mac and my G4 without any problems, started playing songs without any trouble! gotta love rendezvous. Visuals work great (I have a radeon all in wonder 7500- great card, wish they made them for the mac). Recognized my burner (haven't tried burning a cd yet but will let you know what happens). (Since windows supports most burners without any 'device-plugin' files, ironically iTunes for windows will probably support more burners than the Mac version does-Mike)
Going through the menus and the preferences it seems to be functionally 100% identical to the mac counterpart, and visually it's nearly the same (though there is the quite unattractive menu bar across the top).
Havent tried plugging my buddies windows ipod up. It is definitely a huge step up from musicmatch, and with the rendezvous music sharing means I don't have to keep any music on the windows PC (more room for recording video).
chris w. "

" Downloaded iTunes for Windows on my machine at work and then brought in my music library that I had been listening to with Winamp before. Things sound good with no skipping (with 6 IE instances, Outlook, Firebird, a couple of pieces of monitoring software and a SSH connection to my server at home open. Win2k, 1.4Ghz P4, 512MB RAM).
The only problem that I've had with it is that it doesn't appear to support authenticated proxies/firewalls. iTunes is supposed to grab the setting from Internet Options but since those don't include login/password and since iTunes doesn't ask for them I can't use the Radio or ITMS functions. Hopefully Apple will correct this oversight soon (else I'll have to go back to using Winamp for streaming audio).
Bret H. "