Whenever opening iTunes a message appears that ‘The iTunes Music Library file cannot be read because it does not appear to be a valid library file’. Reinstalling the application does not fix the problem. I do use other programs such as Windows Media Player and Winamp to play music, but am unsure if they could be the cause. The computer is a Pentium 1.6 GHz computer with 256 MB RAM running Windows XP Home Edition.

In an attempt to replicate your problem I downloaded and installed iTunes and then proceeded to attempt to break it, in order to get the same error as you are receiving. Fortunately, I was successful! The reason for the error is, as the message suggests, somehow the iTunes library file has become corrupted. The library files are stored in your ‘My Music’ directory in the ‘iTunes’ sub-directory. The reason reinstalling the application did not fix the problem was when you uninstall iTunes this does not delete the library files. So, when you reinstalled and attempted to run the program, iTunes was still using the old, corrupted library files. To fix this problem, go into the My MusiciTunes directory and delete ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’ and ‘iTunes 4 Music Library.itl’. By doing this, you may lose the song information contained in the iTunes library, but you should be able to re-add this information once you can open iTunes. After you have deleted these files, open iTunes. The library files will be recreated and the problem will be resolved.