iphone cant connect to pc via itunes/apple Devices

Hmm. Did you try running the iTunes installer as administrator? You might see my user tip Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates - Apple Community which has advice on tearing down and reinstalling iTunes. It sounds like Apple Mobile Device Support might not have installed correctly. There is a section on installing missing components should it be necessary.

tt2

If you uninstalled the Apple Devices app (on a Windows PC?), it may have left a rogue program behind. After iTunes bricked my iPhone 14 during an IOS update, Apple Support instructed me to install it. But it could not communicate with the iPhone. A tech at the Apple store wiped and reimaged the iPhone, and gave me instructions to reload everything from my iTunes backup (but it didn't). I’m leaving out a lot of details (coming soon in another post), bottom line is the “Apple Devices” app crippled iTunes and disabled the podcast and music sync. I never installed any of the other Apple Windows apps Apple’s been pushing.

After checking on the web, I removed “Apple Devices,” and iTunes resumed business as usual (sort of). Then a week later, iTunes would not start and was prompting me to delete my iTunes installation. Obviously that wasn’t going to happen. Got busy. Then returned to deal with this, and the “attack?” got more obnoxious. As I was checking on the web about this, the Apple program(s) tricked me into getting a window focus in front of my browser window, caught a mouse click meant for something else, and started the uninstall, but I caught and killed it.

I checked my installed programs (in Win setup) that contained “Apple” in the name and found what looked like a bogus “Apple Mobile Device Support” program with an install date matching when Apple bricked my iPhone. I uninstalled it, and iTunes (v12.13.5.3) came back again with all sections present. Even sync’d more podcasts and music from my library. Just needed to re-authorize the PC for the iTunes Store.

iTunes is now running here (Win11) without “Apple Mobile Device Support” being present. Just checked again and Win11 shows I still have “Apple Application Support,” but was installed in August. iTunes recognizes and communicates with my iPhone via USB.

Recommend looking through your installed apps in Windows and sort by install date. Check the date you installed the “Apple Devices” program and consider uninstalling any other apps you don’t recognize that show the same install date.

Try iOS device not showing in iTunes for Windows - Apple Community. Use the current standalone download of iTunes, not the Microsoft Store version.

tt2

Having iTunes and Apple Devices each installed may be causing this issue.

Try uninstalling Apple Devices first.