Slimming Down iTunes

Many Windows users hate Apple’s iTunes with a passion. Windows users come from a world of choice, where there are dozens of media players out there, and it’s easy to choose which one you prefer. Don’t like Windows Media Player? Use WinAMP, foobar, RealJukebox, MusicMatch, or whatever floats your boat. Windows users are also used to having options available. Most Windows users I know prefer having complete control over an install. We get pissed when a program installs something without our approval. And iTunes is really guilty of doing just this.

iTunes used to be software that you used to rip and play CDs, buy songs from iTMS, and transfer music to your iPod. Now, however, Apple thinks you want to do everything with your Apple product, especially the touchscreen devices. Whether you want it to or not, iTunes installs lots of software on your system that not only is pointless for many users, it even leaves possible security holes open and unnecessary services running!

To slim down an installation of iTunes, download the latest full installer from Apple (as of this writing, that would be iTunes801Setup.exe). Unzip the installer using WinZIP, WinRAR or your favorite compression program. Inside the unzipped folder, you will see the following files:

iTunes.msi
Quick Time.msi
AppleSoftwareUpdate.msi
AppleMobileDeviceSupport.msi
Bonjour.msi
MobileMe.msi
Setupadmin.exe

Note: for 64-bit versions of iTunes, most of the above programs have “64” appended to their names, such as “iTunes64.msi”.

Here’s what each one does:

Quicktime enables playback of digital media on a Windows computer. This is required for most installations of iTunes, even if all you want to do is copy your music files to an iPod device.

iTunes is well, iTunes. It’s the actual iTunes interface and database that’s “powered” by Quick Time.

Bonjour is a file-sharing client used for sharing iTunes libraries over a network or for use on Apple TV.

MobileMe is software that enables email and contact syncing with Apple’s MobileMe service.

Apple Mobile Device Support is an email and contact syncing app for iPhone and iPod Touch devices only.

Apple Software Update is a program that checks for new versions of Apple software installed on your PC.

SetupAdmin.exe is the installer shell. It’s the program that appears on your screen when you install iTunes. It simply takes your input and executes the other programs accordingly.

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So… which of the above is SMASH and which is TRASH?

You can immediately delete SetupAdmin.exe, since we’re doing the installation manually.

Quicktime and iTunes are necessary for almost all installations, so you’ll need to install those. For most of the remaining programs, which you install and which you trash depends on your personal need.

If you don’t want to share your iTunes library with anyone and don’t envision yourself buying an Apple TV any time soon, then you really don’t need Bonjour. If you are on a corporate network, know that such file sharing software is looked down upon, not because of the possibility of illegal file trading, but mostly because it wastes company bandwidth and unnecessarily opens ports on your computer. Why open a security hole that could just as easily stay closed? Oh, and if you have a printer attached to an AirPort device, you should use Bonjour.

If you have a MobileMe account, you’ll need to install the MobileMe software. If you don’t use MobileMe, don’t install it: It’s as easy as that! The same goes for Apple Mobile Device Support – it only works with the iPhone and iPod Touch, so if you don’t have one of those models, you don’t need this software.

This brings us to Apple’s much-maligned Apple Software Update. Apple’s updater has taken quite a beating in the past couple of years. It sometimes downloads updates you specifically don’t ask for, and famously downloaded and installed Safari (Apple’s web browser) without ever asking hundreds of thousands of Windows users. It’s also annoying because it pops up far too frequently… which only exacerbates another issue: Apple’s lack of a good patching technology. Whenever Microsoft fixes a hole in Windows Media Player, it issues a patch (usually between 400kb and 1-2MB) that directly patches the affected file(s). Apple, meanwhile requires you to download the entire 66MB iTunes installer with each update. I personally stay away from this software completely, but if you’re a “lazy user” that likes being notified of new releases, you might want to install this. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!

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To actually install the slimmed-down version of iTunes, you’ll need to open a command prompt and navigate to the directory with the unzipped iTunes files. Then enter the name of the program followed by the /passive switch, such as iTunes.msi /passive. Although you don’t have to install the software in any particular order, I would recommend installing them thusly: QuickTime, iTunes, Bonjour, MobileMe, Mobile Device Support, and Apple Software Update.

If you already have iTunes installed, go to Add\Remove Programs and uninstall the programs you no longer need. You might get an error message when you start iTunes (“Bonjour could not be found”, for example). Just click “OK” and you should not be bothered with that message again.

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UPDATE: I forgot to mention an Outlook plug-in that sometimes gets installed with iTunes. It’s called “iTunes Outlook Addin”, and you can see if it’s installed by clicking Tools > Trust Center > Add-ins (Outlook 2007). You can disable and\or remove it there, too.