I think I remember seeing a program that can open installer files to prevent services from installing with the actual program. For example, downloading itunes but not installing the update manager that comes along with it. I just cant seem to find the name of the program. Saw it a while back in a video.
Why would one want to do such a thing? In any case there's ninite but it's probably all bundled together at this point.
I think that it would be useful disecting some installer folders for security reasons so there isn't added services that you might not want. I just figured out that you can actually open up the installer file with winrar and that lets you see all the .msi files within that installer folder. I just dont need the update managers bugging me to update, because I can update the program manually when needed. Thanks for the quick response though. Much appreciated.
You could find where the update thing is after and just rename/delete a file or something
You might want to take a look at http://superuser.com/questions/252370/how-can-i-install-itunes-in-such-a-way-that-it-cant-put-any-hooks-or-helper-p
That is a possibility, but no way to do it right, because you might never know what has been installed at all (not every installer tells you everything).
I am not on windows anymore, but would recommend you to look into Sandboxie - or if someone knows any alternatives feel free to point at 'em!
Depending on the installer, archive manager software (e.g. 7-zip) can do that
Let me take a shot in the dark. Do you mean something like this; http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/ ?
This sort of stuff is generally way out of my expertise. I just used the resource hacker to mod XCOM in the past :)