iTunes secret assassinator for Outlook?

Word on the street is that the latest version of iTunes software is obliterating some Outlook recurring events. Not a big deal if you're using it at home to listen to the Sphincter Sister's podcast while you dial Mom and looking at the photos your cousin sent you from inside Space Mountain.

But if you're one of those people who have admin rights and can install the iTunes software on your work machine AND your work mail solution just happens to be riding on the Exchange/Outlook backbone, well then...for now you might want to consider disabling automatic updates of the iTunes software if the MS Outlook Calendar-iPhone synch is a concern for you.

The affected version of the software is version 7.3.2.6. If have already have this version installed and have not yet synched, you can also disable the Outlook add-in.

For Outlook 2003, follow these steps to disable third-party add-ins:

1. Open Outlook 2003
2. From the Tools menu, choose Options.
3. Click the Other tab.
4. Click the Advanced Options button.
5. Click the COM Add-Ins button.
6. In the add-ins "iTunes Outlook add-in" and "Outlook iTunes Sync add-in" please uncheck and disable this.
7. Deselect the checkbox for each third-party add-in in this list.
8. Click OK.

For Outlook 2007, follow these steps to disable third-party add-ins:

1. Open Outlook 2007
2. From the Tools menu, choose Trust Center.
3. Select Add-ins from the left column.
4. Look at the list of add-ins beneath "Active Application Add-Ins" iTunes/Outlook add-ins ("iTunes Outlook add-in" and "Outlook iTunes Sync add-in") select the iTunes add-in
5. In the Manage box, click COM Add-Ins, and then click Go.
6. In the COM Add-Ins dialog, deselect the checkbox for each iTunes add-in in this list.
7. Click OK.

Folks who were troubleshooting this couldn't find any other alternative order of operations or impact from other applications that would cause this problem, so tread lightly. This looks to be affecting Outlook Calendars on both PCs and Macs. More troubleshooting from Apple here. Although in this case installing the newest version of iTunes probably shouldn't be part of the solution. Steve Jobs wants to kill your Microsoft calendar...muah-ha-ha-hahahaha!!