iTunes

Background and description

This page was previously known as iTunes without QuickTime.

I have never been a fan of iTunes. From the first and almost unusable versions for Windows, I never liked that it wasn’t coded like a native application and how it looked exactly as the Mac OS version. This is never a good thing for multi-platform programs. It’s performance, compared to other players or library managers, was poor to say the least.

For Windows users, QuickTime was a real nightmare. It took over your file types and associated itself with all the supported formats without even asking you. It also added a startup process and caused problems with other players. This has changed, tough.

Last year, Apple decided to remove the QuickTime dependency from iTunes. Now it doesn’t needs to be removed by modifying the installer so we all can install it without installing QuickTime as well.

I still don’t like iTunes (the main reason being it’s inability, by design, to sync different Apple devices in different computers or it’s lack of automatic cleaning of physically removed files from your library), but I keep making new custom installers after Apple releases a new version.

You can use them exactly as the original installer. You can sync your iPod, Shuffle, iPod Touch and iPhone, update their firmware, manage your music library, listen to radio, etc.

My iTunes installers are switchless. When you run them, iTunes will be installed without asking you anything and all you will see is the installation progress. You don’t need to do anything else.

Modifications

• Removed Bonjour service. If you share your iTunes library over a network, you wil need it. Just extract the Bonjour MSI file from the original iTunes installer (use either the 32-bit or 64-bit version) using 7-Zip or WinRAR and run it.
• Removed Apple Software Update. It won’t be scheduled to run periodically to check for updated versions of iTunes, Safari or QuickTime.
• Removed iTunes Helper. This is a process that loads at startup to supposedly help iTunes startup speed by pre-loading some data. This is not needed at all.
• It won’t associate itself with all the supported file formats. You can change that in its settings page if you want it to be your default player.
• It is installed for all users, unlike the original installer which install for the current user only.

Troubleshooting

• When you first run iTunes, it will tell you that Bonjour isn’t installed. You can dismiss it as it is not needed unless you share your library over a network.
• Please uninstall any previous versions of iTunes before using my installers. This is to avoid any conflicts with older versions.
• If you get an installation problem, use Windows Disk Cleanup tool to remove temporary files (make sure to check them in the list) and try again. Another common solution is to run Microsoft’s Program Install and Uninstall troubleshooter tool to find and remove corrupted data.
• For any other problems or questions with these installers, please post in the comments section of this page to keep the one in the Custom Installers page for all other applications.