How To Install the Bloatware Free Edition of iTunes!

Hate it or love it, iTunes is the de facto standard music player when it comes to managing your iPod. There are indeed other music players that can also manage your iPod but because both are Apple’s product, they both go hand in hand. Also, being able to purchase songs and download all kinds of podcast in the iTune’s Store is very useful. However, one gripe a lot of people have with iTunes is its installation. A default installation of iTunes will install a host of other services that you most likely do not need or want on your computer. Although it might seem as if you have no other choice, you indeed do and we’ll go over how to perform a custom iTunes installation without all the extra bloatware that comes with it.

iTunes installation is bloated, that much is true. Have you ever wondered why a music player download would be almost 75MB in size? Well, that’s because the nice guys at Apple decided to also bundle in a host of other applications and services to go along with a default iTunes installation. The sad news about this whole ordeal is that Apple doesn’t give you an option to only pick what you want to be installed during the installation! Also, they don’t even tell you whatt it is that they are installing! Once you start a default iTunes installation, other services gets installed in the background quietly and the only way to undo them is to manually head into the Add/Remove panel.

By default, the iTunes executable file that you download is actually a compressed file with other separate installation files in it besides iTunes itslef. You can actually open and peek inside the iTunes executable file by using a file archiving utility such as Winrar or the free 7-Zip.

As you can see, besides the actual iTunes executable file, there are 5 other files in there that will automatically be installed as well. The Quicktime player for one, is actually required for iTunes to work. That much we cannot avoid if we want to use iTunes. However, if you only want to have Quicktime capabilities but without the bloated video player itself, you can actually install the Quicktime Alternative codec instead. This allows your computer to be able to play Quicktime video files in theMedia Player Classic player (and install iTunes) without actually getting bogged down by the actual Quicktime player itself. If you do want to install the entire Quicktime application, you can do so as well by using the Quicktime executable file inside the iTunes archive. It’s up to you.

Installing iTunes, Bloatware Free

Alright so we are now going to install iTunes on our computer, the bloatware free edition.

1. Open up the iTunes executable file with a file archiving utility. I’ve listed some free utilities in the beginning of this post.

2. Once you have it open and can see all the executable files inside, proceed to extract ‘only’ the iTunes file to your desktop. Remember, iTunes require Quicktime to be installed as well. Depending on your preferences, you can choose to install Quicktime Alternative codec or the full blown Quicktime player itself. If you choose the latter, than proceed to extract the Quicktime executable as well from within the iTunes archive.

3. Now, you need to install whichever Quicktime method you have chosen. I personally chose to use Quicktime Alternative.
Note: Users with iPhone’s who must sync via iTunes should not install the Quicktime Alternative plugin and should instead choose to install the full version. Otherwise, you might get a error message when syncing.

4. Now you can proceed to ‘silently’ install iTunes by using the iTunes executable you extracted earlier. Open a Command Prompt and navigate to the directory where the executable resides in (in my case, the desktop). Now, type in:
msiexec.exe /i iTunes.msi /quiet

Once you run the command, iTunes will proceed to install in the background. You will not see any dialog prompts. You’ll know when the installation is complete when you see the iTunes icon on your desktop.

That’s it! You now have a clean installation of iTunes on your computer, free of all the bloatware that Apple ‘forces’ you to install. But not anymore. As you can see in my Add/Remove applet, I don’t have any other Apple services installed other than just Quicktime and iTunes itself.