Installers suck for 1 key reason: you have no control. They put whatever they want on your computer. You may just want a driver, but your getting a whole package of garbage you don’t want. There is a workaround for this that works in most cases. It’s semi-technical.
Get Cygwin
You’ll need to install cygwin through the installer if you don’t already have it (yea installer, but it’s pretty handy stuff and a good installer since you select what you want)… In the “Archive” group select ‘cabextract’. I’d personally recommend you leave the rest alone, though you can slim stuff down if you want. Install.
Get The Installer you hate
In my case I’ll use the Logitech QuickCam driver.
Extract
In the cygwin command prompt, navigate to the file, and use:
cabextract installer.exe
Where installer.exe is, replace with your installer. In a few seconds you should see something like this:
Install
Now navigate to the driver or file you want.
In my case I want a driver, so I can right click on the INF and “Install”.
Perfect. It now works, and I don’t have those “utilities”, “updaters”, or what ever garbage they think I actually would want.