Windows 7 iTunes does not accept the adhoc ipa file

Question

I am in beta testing stage for an application.

Some of my beta testers use Windows 7 and run iTunes within.

Some of them are just fine but a few observe some rather strange behavior.

That is: Neither the *.ipa nor the *.mobileprivision file can be dragged and dropped into the Apps section of the Mediathek within iTunes. (Doing so the icon indicates that the object cannot be dropped within iTunes)

We tried File/Add to Mediathek ... and that does not work either. No error message but the app does not show up and when adding the mobileprovision file for a second and third time no message comes up that asks whether to overwite the existing mobileprovision file.

I tried google and the search within stackoverflow but did not find anything that matches my problem.

Any suggestion is highly appreciated!

Answer 1

Probably not a direct answer to your question - but a workaround:

Have you tried http://testflightapp.com ? Lets you send beta builds to your testers over the air without them having to go through iTunes. And it's free.

No affiliation - just a satisfied user.

Answer 2

Agree with Abizem. Testflight is a good, painless way of sending out builds. If you absolutely have to use the mobileprovision and .app route, just copy the mobileprovision file and do a sync. Check if that is getting added to the device (the UDID in the mobileprovision might be incorrect)

Note: the .app file will appear as a folder on a Windows system. The entire folder needs to be dragged in this case.

Answer 3

If all of your testers use iOS 4 you can drop the two files on your file server and let them open the website from there iOS device. It is really simple and they don't even need a PC for testing:

http://buzzworks.de/blog/announcing-developer-framework-hockey