Replying to IPod/ Itunes question.....please help!

So I was all stoked today.... I won an ipod for filling out some survey at my school. Badass.

The problem is that my Itunes went tits up about a week ago.... I have no idea why. I tried erasing it from my hard drive and re-downloading it, but after installation, when I actually open it up, there is always an error message. It doesn't say what the problem is, it is just one of those "Windows has encountered a problem and shut down Itunes. Send error report?"

So I tried a few more times with the re-downloading, but it is always the same thing....

My questions: is Itunes the only program that I can use to download music to my Ipod?

And... any suggestions about what else I can do to get Itunes running? Thanks....