Q: When I connect my iPhone to my computer, Picasa automatically opens. How do I change the association so that iTunes opens instead? I am running a Dell XPS with windows XP.
– Anonymous
A: The situation here is that the iPhone actually presents itself to your computer both as an iPhone and as a digital camera device. This allows you to use a software application such as Picasa or the Windows Scanner and Camera Wizard to transfer photos that you have taken with your iPhone to your computer.
In this case, Picasa is likely set as your default photo management application, and will therefore open whenever a digital camera is detected that contains photo content. Removing any photos you have taken with the iPhone’s camera should prevent Picasa from opening, since by default Windows should only open a photo transfer application when it detects a digital camera that actually contains photos.
Despite this, however, iTunes should also be opening as well, so the problem is not so much that Picasa is opening instead of iTunes, but simply that iTunes itself is not detecting the iPhone properly. To resolve this, you should check your iTunes preferences to ensure that it is set to open when you connect your iPhone.
There are two places in iTunes that you can check this setting.
First, with the iPhone connected, select it in the iTunes source list and then look for the setting on the iPhone’s “Summary” tab in iTunes that says “Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected” and ensure that it is selected.
The second location can be found under iTunes Preferences, on the “iPhone” tab, and is labelled “Disable automatic syncing for all iPhones.” This option should not be selected.
If these options are in fact both set correctly and iTunes is still not opening when you connect your iPhone, then you may want to simply try uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes to ensure that the necessary services are properly installed.
