Whenever i try to run any program that involves an apple lossless encoder it crashes.
For example, I double click on ItunesEncode.exe and a black DOS window pops up for a split second and closes.
I think it's because I have windows xp 64 bit. I tried installing dbPowerAmp music converter but I always get an error while installing. What's going on?

It might be a 64-bit issue, however there's a couple of things about itunesencode that you should rule out first:

1. itunesencode requires that you have iTunes installed on your system. While I don't use it myself, it's my understanding that itunesencode is a command line script that processes audio files through iTunes.

2. itunesencode isn't a standalone windows application, rather it is invoked via command line using a "front end" program such as EAC or foobar. For example, you would configue the command line in EAC to call itunesencode, which would send the .wav files ripped in EAC to iTunes for encoding.

Do a search for itunesencode - I recall there are a couple of threads devoted to it.

Well is it worth the trouble trying to figure it out? What I'm doing is converting my FLAC files to ALAC. Currently I'm having to convert to WAV first and then I can import to itunes. I'm really just looking for a way to keep the tags.

itunesencode works fine on my Vista 64-bit, so it's not an x64 OS issue