I’m sure all of us hate bloated software and in my opinion one of the most bloated software is iTunes. I would never install it or use it but since my wife has both iPad and iPhone 4, I am forced to install iTunes on my computer so that I can update its iOS to the latest version. In fact one of my friend even complained to me that he too hates iTunes because it pretty much takes over the whole operating system. If you didn’t realize, installing iTunes will also install Quicktime, Bonjour (mDNSResponder), Apple Software Update, Apple Mobile Device Support and Apple Application Support. Try extracting the iTunesSetup.exe file using 7-Zip and you will get an additional 6 MSI and 1 EXE file.

Some people tried to install iTunes 10 in Sandboxie so that it runs in an isolated space which prevents iTunes from making permanent changes to other programs and data in your computer but so far unsuccessful. I personally tried using VMware ThinApp to make iTunes 10 portable and also failed. Then I remembered another powerful software called Xenocode where you can use it to make a portable .NET application which means you can actually run a .NET application without installing .NET on the Windows operating system. The only issue is a small sized .NET application would become an over 20MB file. Xenocode is no longer available because it has evolved (renamed) into Spoon Studio. I downloaded the trial version of Spoon Studio 2011 and easily made a working portable version of iTunes 10 with it. Here are the steps…


1. Download iTunes 10 installer and save the iTunesSetup.exe on your hard drive. Don’t install it yet.

2. Download Spoon Studio 2011 from the official website and install.

3. Run Spoon Studio 2011 and click on the middle button “Virtualize a third-party application or component” in Configuration Wizard.

4. Click Next to capture the “before” snapshot.,

5. When you see the window asking you to install and configure your application, install iTunes 10 now. I would uncheck all 3 checkboxes (Add iTunes and QuickTime shortcuts to my desktop, Use iTunes as the default player for audio files, Automatically update iTunes and other Apple software) in iTunes installation options.

6. Click the Next button in Spoon Studio.

7. Click Next again when you are asked to capture the “after” snapshot and compute deltas.

8. Select a destination folder to save the snapshot copies.

9. Click the Multiple button when asked to Select a startup file.

10. Check ONLY iTunes and click OK.

11. If you want to run iTunes portable from USB flash drive, select the second radio button that says “Removable story device (ideal for USB keys)”. If you want to save it on your hard drive and run it from there, just select the first radio button “User application data folder on the host PC”. Click Next.

12. Click Next again and when asked to select an output file, specify the filename of the portable iTunes and click Save.

13. The final step is to click the Finish button.

14. Before Spoon Studio 2011 starts building your portable iTunes 10, you will either have to activate using an existing license certificate OR create a free spoon.net trial account. Just fill up the form and click OK. Click OK again to acknowledge that you have read and understood the End-User License Agreement. Follow the on-screen instruction and the final result is only one single 420MB executable file.

You can now run iTunes 10 from the single EXE file without installing the super bloated iTunes package. When you launch iTunes portable, you should get a notification window “The software required for communicating with iPods and mobile phone was not installed correctly. Do you want iTunes to try to repair this for you?” Just click No.

Connecting your iPhone or any other devices from Apple and you should also get another error “This iPhone cannot be used because the required software is not installed. Run the iTunes installer to remove iTunes, then install iTunes again.” In order for iTunes to recognize your iPhone, iPad, iPod, you will need to install the Apple Mobile Device Support and Apple Application Support. Extract iTunesSetup.exe with 7-Zip, run AppleMobileDeviceSupport.msi then AppleApplicationSupport.msi.

As you can see from the image below, iTunes 10 is running but it is not installed on my computer. iTunes can also detect my wife’s iPhone 4. I am also able to update to the latest iOS 4.3.5 using the portable iTunes 10.

Note: If you built the portable iTunes with the option “Removable story device (ideal for USB keys)” and you run the portable iTunes executable file from your hard drive, you will get an error message “UsbActivationOnly is missing from string table. It has a strict restriction that it must be launched from USB flash drive.

Spoon Studio 2011 is amazing but unfortunately it is not a freeware… A single Spoon Studio 2011 Standard Edition Developer License cost a whoping $2400! I know that none of you is going to spend that money just to make a portable iTunes but I am just showing you a possible way in case you have a valid Spoon Studio 2011 license 😉