Vista - Lite program installs

I'm looking for a solution to allow me to run the installer of programs that I know don't need to be registered with in the registry. I want to be able to install these programs with out writing to the registry, just extract the files to where i tell it to install. the only way i've figured out how to do this is with a VM, or something like Thinstall, and I don't want to use either type of solution

-thanks

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:03:49 -0500, ACiD GRiM
<guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote:

Either the program's installation needs to create registry entries
(except for a few, typically small, self-contained programs, they all
do) or it doesn't. You have no control over this, and there is no
"solution."

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

I understand this, i just want to prevent the INSTALLER from making registry keys, I don't care if the app itself does anything.

Then you don't need an installer. Just copy the EXE to the program files
folder. Any of the usual self-extracting archive utilities allow you to
nominate the folder to extract to, and will create it if it doesn't exist.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"ACiD GRiM" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:97ed4559af789c3cfd7bac5abe868193@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

I know how to do that, I'm looking for a way to prevent writes to the registry temporaraly. sometimes the installer isn't openable by 7zip so i HAVE to install it, i just want to be able to just get the files out because i know that they will run as a lite install.

I think what you are saying that these are other people's programs which you
know don't HAVE to create their registry entries in order to run properly,
but the supplied installer writes to the registry anyway, and you want to
run the supplied installer and not have it write to the registry. Even if
it could be done, I would guess that any attempt to prevent the installer
writing to the registry will create a run-time error and the installer will
abort.

Use Virtual PC and delete the virtual machine after you have finished with
the application you are looking at.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"ACiD GRiM" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:ed4d5e72a6c4f52b2f7aa80eec21e541@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Ya, thanks for trying to help. I've been running a VMware for some time now, its just a pain in the neck to boot it just to install one app. I guess what I'm looking for is some program that I can run the install inside it so that it can intercept all registry edits.