Can the EU get me QuickTime N?
So, a long time ago, in a continent not so far away, the European Union required Microsoft to ship a version of Windows without Media Player, called Windows XP N.
Now, here's a follow-up to my previous articles:
Once again, I find Apple's Software Updater offering me "iTunes + QuickTime 7.5", in response to a security flaw in QuickTime.
"Strange," I think, "I can only see QuickTime 7.3 for download at the Apple download site - not 7.5. Clearly, this is an urgent update that they haven't had a chance to put up on the web site. I'd better install it quickly."
Uh, no.
As you'll tell from my previous columns, I don't want iTunes.
Let me say that again, clearly:
I don't want iTunes.
Ever.
[Unless I change my mind, and if that ever happens, then I will hunt iTunes down for myself.]
So, Steve Jobs, or any Apple fans, how can I install QuickTime so that it's devoid of iTunes, remains devoid of iTunes, doesn't keep bugging me to install iTunes, never offers me an advert for iTunes, and doesn't cause Apple Software Update to go searching for and offering iTunes?
...
FX: Crickets chirping.
I want QuickTime N - a version of QuickTime that I will have to assert strong personal preferences before it will re-associate itself in any way whatsoever with a program that I don't want to put on my machine. [That's iTunes, by the way.]
[Actually, I don't want QuickTime at all - I want to play .MOV files very very rarely. There's a big difference.]
And while we're there, let's have a registry setting from each of the companies involved that says "I don't ever want to be asked to install the Google Toolbar, the Yahoo Toolbar, the Ask.Com Toolbar, unless I go out deliberately, and manually download and install the affected application on its own in the absence of any other software."
Please, all you installation programmers out there, stop bugging me.
Really, please stop it!
If I wanted your free software, I'd go get your free software. Feel free to tell me about it, but don't offer it up as a default installation with something else.
And for those of you programmers who are looking to include some random piece of junk - sorry, some excellent tool that you adore beyond all else (and whose owners have paid you to carry it) - don't make me think while I'm installing your program, if for no other reason than that every time you give me another reason to stop installing, you increase the chance that I'll stop and go elsewhere.