Step-by-Step Guide to Installing iTunes Without Extra Bloatware

Last week our friend Ed Bott wrote up an excellent article on how to install iTunes 10 on Windows without extra bloat. Today we take a look at doing a minimal install with a step by step tutorial.
Apple released iTunes 10 a couple of weeks ago, and unfortunately it’s not much of an improvement if at all. Last week Ed Bott wrote up The unofficial guide to installing iTunes 10 without bloatware. Today we take a closer look at the process of doing a minimal install of it in Windows 7 to avoid the extra junk. 

Getting Started

Instead of just going through a typical update from iTunes 9 to iTunes 10, you might want to look at our guide on uninstalling iTunes and everything that comes with it. Then download the iTunes 10 installer and we can begin clean and fresh.
For this article we’re using Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit. The process is the same on a 64-bit version as well, the file names just include 64 in them.
After downloading the iTunes 10 installer, extract it with any file extraction utility. Here we’re using 7zip to open the archive.

Now you will see everything in the iTunes 10 installer which as you know is several components. The cool thing is that you don’t need them all.

Minimum Install

Here we’re going to go for the most minimum install that we can get away with using Ed Bott’s instructions.This will let us run iTunes and use an iPod Mini, Nano, Classic, or Shuffle. This method won’t let you use an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Apple TV, or other sharing features.
Extract the following files to a folder on the hard drive (hold down the Ctrl key while you highlight each one):

• iTunes.msi
• QuickTime.msi
• AppleApplicationSupport.msi

 
It’s probably easiest to create a new folder to extract them to. Here we made a folder called iTunes Minimal.

Now open the folder you extracted the files to and you should see the three files.

Now we can use a little command line magic and run the installs with the /passive switch which installs each item in unattended mode. To open the Command Prompt in Windows 7 type cmd into the Search Box and hit Enter.

Enter in the path of where the file resides, then use the /passive switch with the command at the end.

We ran each one individually, you’ll see the following screens after running each command starting with Apple Application Support.

QuickTime.

And finally iTunes.

When you’re finished you should see something similar to this in the Command Prompt. Of course yours will be different based on your computer name and the location where you extracted the files.

Now you’ll see the QuickTime and iTunes icons on your Desktop and can launch iTunes and go through the Setup Assistant.

One screen you’ll see is that the Bonjour service hasn’t been installed. That’s fine! We don’t need it anyway. If you did want to install it to play your music through AirPlay speakers or connect to Apple TV you can always go back and install it. But for this minimal install, we don’t need or want it on our machine.

And there you go! You can start using iTunes without all the extra junk you don’t want and still be able to use your Apple devices we listed above. Even with this minimal install, iTunes can still run like a pig, so for more on speeding it up check out our 10 tips to make iTunes run faster in Windows (most of the tips work on OS X too).

The files you install will depend on how you want to use iTunes. For example you might want Bonjour for its features or support for an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad. For more on what you need or don’t need to install check out page 3 of Ed Bott’s Guide.
If you want to use your iPod Touch to sync your music take a look at using MediaMonkey for managing your iPod or another alternative is using Foobar2000. Maybe someday Apple will make a decent version of iTunes that doesn’t include all the bloat so we don’t have to use these types of workarounds…one can only hope!
We look forward to hearing from you how this approach works for you. Leave a comment and let us know!
Download iTunes 10 Installer
Ed Bott’s Unofficial Guide to Installing iTunes 10 Without Bloatware

Stop Windows Update from Hijacking the Sleep/Shutdown Button

As an avid user of the Sleep function on my laptop, I’ve been more than irritated with Windows 7 or Vista’s habit of changing the Sleep/Shutdown button into an “Install Updates and Shut Down” button whenever there are updates from Windows Update.
After the last time I accidentally clicked this stupid button when I just wanted to enter sleep mode, I decided to look for a solution.

Update: Windows 7 does the same thing to my Shutdown button, and this same registry hack fixes the problem.

Manual Registry Hack
If you’d like to manually create this hack, you can open up regedit.exe using the start menu search box and then browse down to the following key, creating the key if it doesn’t exist.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU

Add a 32-bit DWORD value called NoAUAsDefaultShutdownOption with a value of 1. No reboot should be necessary.
Now our Sleep button should be back to the way it was, but if you wanted to use the Install Updates and Shut Down option, it’s still available via the shutdown menu:

Speed Up the Help Dialog in Windows and Office

When you click help, you don’t want to wait for your computer to bring it to you.  Here’s how you can speed up the help dialog in Windows and Office.
If you have a slow internet connection, chances are you’ve been frustrated by the Help dialog in Windows and Office trying to download fresh content every time you open them. This can be great if the updated help files contain better content, but sometimes you just want to find what you were looking for without waiting.  Here’s how you can turn off the automatic online help.
Use Local Help in Windows
Windows 7 and Vista’s help dialog usually tries to load the latest content from the net, but this can take a long time on slow connections.

If you’re seeing the above screen a lot, you may want to switch to offline help.  Click the “Online Help” button at the bottom, and select “Get offline Help”.

Now your computer will just load the pre-installed help files.  And don’t worry; if there’s a major update to your help files, Windows will download and install it through Windows Update.

Stupid Geek Tip: An easy way to open Windows Help is to click on your desktop or Start Menu and press F1 on your keyboard.

Use Local Help in Office
This same trick works in Office 2007 and 2010.  We’ve actually had more problems with Office’s help being tardy.

Solve this the same way as with Windows help.  Click on the “Connected to Office.com” or “Connected to Office Online” button, depending on your version of Office, and select “Show content only from this computer”.

This will automatically change the settings for Help in all of your Office applications. While this may not be a major trick, it can be helpful especially if you have a slow internet connection and want to get things done quickly. 

Startup Customizations for Media Center in Windows 7

Do you wish you could just jump right into playing music when you open Media Center? Or maybe just skip that start up animation? Today we are going to show you a variety of startup switches that will allow you to customize the way Media Center opens in Windows 7.
Startup Customizations
We will be adding all of these switches to the end of the Target, on the Shortcut tab in the properties of Windows Media Center. If you start Media Center from the Start menu, go to Start > All Programs, right-click on Windows Media Center and select “Properties.” If you launch Media Center from a desktop shortcut, simply right-click on the icon and choose “Properties.” On the “Shortcut” tab, you will see the Target box with the text string: %windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe.

To add each of these switches to the Target, simply leave a space after %windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe, type the switch, and click “Save.” When you are finished, it should read like this:

%windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe /nostartupanimation

Disable the Startup Animation & Music
This switch opens Media Center without it’s animation and music. It doesn’t seem to open Media Center any faster, but if you are annoyed by the animation and music, this will rid you of both.

/no startupanimation

Media Only Mode
Media Only mode keeps Windows Media Center displayed in full screen with the minimize and close buttons hidden. A small padlock will appear in the top right corner next to the time.

/mediamode

You can turn off Media Only mode from within Media Center by going to Tasks > Exit Media Only.

RTL Mode
If you prefer to look at things from right to left, you may enjoy RTL mode.

/rtl

This switch essentially flips the direction of everything in Media Center. You’ll notice that in windowed mode, even the close, maximize, and minimized buttons are flipped to the left side.

Remove Shut Down from Tasks
This switch disables the Shut Down tile under Tasks on the Windows Media Center Start menu.

/noshutdownui

This can be especially useful for preventing family members from clicking shut down and turning off your PC when it needs to stay on to record your favorite shows.

No Chrome
This switch opens Media Center without the window frame and doesn’t display an icon on the task bar.

/nochrome

It’s got a cool appearance if you don’t mind not being able to either move the window around with your mouse, or easily exit out of Media Center. To escape this mode once you’ve entered it, double-click on the green Media Center logo at the top left to pop it into Full Screen mode, then click the ”X” at the top right to exit.
 
Open in the Video Library
Start directly in the Video Library in Full Screen mode with this switch.

/directmedia:video

Start in Recorded TV
If you want to dive into your recorded TV shows right off the bat, this switch will open Media Center in your Recorded TV library in Full Screen mode.

/directmedia:tv

Open in the Picture Library
If pictures are more your thing, try opening Media Center in the Picture Library in Full Screen mode.

/directmedia:pictures

Open in the Music Library
If you use Windows Media Center more for music than Video or TV, you may want to try this switch on for size. It opens Media Center in the Music Library in Full Screen mode.

/directmedia:music

Play Your Music at Startup
Start your music collection playing on startup with this switch.

/playallmusic

If you’d rather start up to only your favorite songs, try this switch instead.

/playfavmusic

Play Music with a Slideshow
Start off Media Center with a slideshow accompanied by your music.

/playslideshowwithmusic

Or play the slideshow with only your favorite music.

/playfavslideshowwithmusic

 
Start with Just a Slideshow
If you prefer only a slideshow on startup, try this switch.

/playslideshow

Or a slideshow of just your favorites.

/playfavslideshow

Soluto Beta Manages All Your PCs from a Web Browser (We Have Invites!)

Anti-frustration software maker Soluto has just launched their newest product, and it’s pretty great. Now you can manage all of your (and your family members’) computers from one web interface. It’s in private beta, but we’ve got invites for How-To Geek readers.
Note: We’re going to take you through a couple of screenshots and show the basics of how it works, but there’s too much to really put into a single article—so you can, and should, make sure to grab the link and invite code from the bottom of the article and install it for yourself.

Soluto’s New Web-Based Computer Management

Once you’ve signed up and created an account, you’ll be able to see the main management panel, which lets you see all of your computers at a glance and invite friends or family members that you help to install the client on their machine. Once you’ve added your computers and gotten your family members to sign up as well, you can see everything in one screen like this:

Once you dive down into one of the computers, you’ll see an overview of the computer (the screenshot at the top of the article), and you can perform all the same tasks that you are familiar with from the old version of Soluto, like removing applications from your boot, which is almost easier to do from the web interface.
Note: the great thing is that the other computer does not have to be online to perform these tasks. The next time their computer boots up, Soluto will make the changes required.

You can check their Firewall status, Windows patches, and if they don’t have any anti-virus installed, you can even push the installation down to their machine—either AVG Free or Microsoft Security Essentials, and make sure that it’s updated. It will automatically install on their computer.

There’s an entire panel to clean up browser extensions and plugins and change the browser home page or search engines, which might seem silly to a geek, but this is one of the most tedious and annoying things to deal with on a family member’s PC, especially when they install junkware that changes them or installs toolbars. You can just quickly click to change everything back to normal.

There’s even a hardware view that shows you everything from driver versions to the CPU temperature.  That’s right, you can see the fan speed and CPU temperature from a web browser anywhere.

There’s a lot more that you can do in the management panel, but you can go and check it out for yourself. Soluto has also told us that they will be pushing down a lot of updates over the next few months, and adding even more management capabilities—we can’t tell you everything they’ve got planned, but rest assured that it’s pretty cool.

Important Notes and Other FAQs

You might have a few questions, and here’s your answers:

• Soluto Web will always be free for up to 5 computers. More than that will eventually cost money.
• Anybody you invite won’t need a code.
• Yes, you should try it out.

We should also note, for all the haters out there, that this is not a marketing post. We actually like and recommend Soluto, and the guys over there at Soluto have always been friends of us here at How-To Geek.

Grab Your Copy of New Soluto

There’s nothing left to do but sign up and test it out for yourself. Just head to the link, use the code, and then sign up for an account.

Code: howtogeeksentme
Signup: http://www.soluto.com/newstuff

Note: their servers are getting hit pretty hard this morning.
Be sure to let us know what you think in the comments.

Soluto Solves PC Crashes and Speeds Up Boot Time. Download It Now!

Troubleshooting an application crash is one of the most frustrating tasks for the everyday geek, but now Soluto has upgraded their already-awesome boot-speed-up application with an application crash analyzer—and it helps disable browser add-ons too.
If you haven’t installed Soluto yet, you should grab your own copy right now—if you already have it installed, you should be upgraded at some point today automatically. You’ll just need to restart Soluto to get the new features unlocked.
Note: Soluto is completely free, and our friends at the company assure us that this application will be free forever. We at How-To Geek absolutely recommend this software, and the people that made it.

Screenshot Tour of Soluto

The previous version only helped you tweak your boot speed, but the new version has tools to clean up web browser add-ons, as well as analyze application crashes.

The boot analyzer still works wonders—I was able to delay Dropbox on startup and reduce my startup time down to only 25 seconds.

The browser add-on screen will let you quickly disable any of the add-ons installed into Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer.

And the crash analyzer will track system crashes and in some cases, at least, give you solutions to the crashes. You’ll notice that there’s no solution for my VLC crash, and that’s because I only installed Soluto on this PC yesterday and haven’t had another crash since.

The Awesome: Soluto Replaces the Windows Crash Handler

Remember that annoying dialog that happens when an application crashes, that asks if you want to send a report to Microsoft? Soluto replaces that dialog with a cute little crash dialog that shows you a solution for the problem.

In this example, I was using the crash test application—clicking the See Solutions took me right to the screen with the proper solution, which was to stop running the crash tester, of course.

Keep in mind that some of the features, like analyzing crashes and startup time, will get better over time as Soluto collects more data on crashes and solutions.
Note: if you aren’t seeing the new features yet, just wait a bit. They are rolling it out at 8AM EST today, so you should see the features enabled soon.
Download Soluto from soluto.com