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I want to be able to charge my iPhone on my work computer, which is running Windows Server 2008 SP1 64-Bit. When I plug the iPhone in with the USB cable, it will not charge. Windows attempts to locate a driver for the device but only comes up with a generic Camera device and even if I allow that to be installed, the iPhone still does not charge. I have checked the computer's BIOS settings and did not find anything relating to power on the USB devices. I also tried this on ports at the back of the computer in addition to those on the front. The PC is a Dell Optiplex 780.

As far as I can tell USB devices do not charge unless Windows has installed an appropriate driver. Since it is a work computer I do not want to install iTunes which does include a driver. I have a workaround that I will post as an answer for reference.

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This workaround allows the iPhone to charge without a full install of iTunes but it's still a bit of a pain as you can't download the driver directly as far as I can tell.

  • Download iTunes64Setup.exe (about 95MB). If you are on a 32-bit version of Windows download iTunesSetup.exe
  • Use an archive tool like 7-Zip to open the file as an archive. For 7-Zip, right click on iTunes64Setup.exe and select 7-Zip->Open Archive
  • Extract the AppleMobileDeviceSupport64.msi file (about 10MB) to a temporary directory. I presume the 32 bit version is just called AppleMobileDeviceSupport.msi.
  • Run the installer and follow the prompts.

After this my iPhone charges successfully. A bit irritating that you still end up having to download the large iTunesSetup.exe but the best I could come up with!

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Do you have the Desktop Experience feature installed? I followed your directions (windows server 2008 x64) and did not have any luck. These led me to wonder if I needed the "photo management" portion of Windows, since that is what kicks in by default when I plug my iPhone into my XP box. – Patrick Johnmeyer Jul 20 '10 at 17:01
Worked perfectly. Thanks! – Randolpho Aug 20 '10 at 14:29
I do have the Desktop Experience feature installed now but I'm fairly sure I didn't at the time I made this post. Unfortunately I can't be 100% sure. – Martin Hollingsworth Sep 6 '10 at 2:21
Worked for me on Windows 7. Thanks for the tip! – tomlogic Dec 7 '10 at 18:02
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