Apple no longer supports its QuickTime player. Both the player and the browser plugins were found to have security flaws which meant a malicious website could trick you to playing a doctored file in the player / plugin, which would then allow those vulnerabilities to be exploited.
The answer is simple: Install another player. Like VideoLan's VLC Player.
However, some other applications need you to have the QuickTime player installed, and will check that it's there. OK, maybe not many programs: The one I'm aware of is UltraKey, a touch-typing program. They issued a statement when QuickTime was no longer supported. It simply says that they've released new installers for their programs. These install the QuickTime engine, but not the application or the browser plugins. Because the exploit involves tricking you into playing a doctored video in the application or the plugin, it is safe to have just the engine installed.
Sounds great. All you have to do is uninstall QuickTime (if it was installed) - otherwise, the UltraKey installer will assume you want QuickTime installed, and won't overwrite it. Then re-install (or install) UltraKey, and its installer will automatically install the engine.
Only, it doesn't. At least, the version I installed didn't. There was no mention of QuickTime in the installation process, and when you try to run UltraKey it tells you to install QuickTime, then shuts down.
What to do?
Well, Apple now know that people need just the engine, so they've made this option available.
Step 1: Go to the download page on their website and download QuickTime player 7.7.9 (or later).
Step 2: Run the installer.
Step 3: Click next, and accept the license agreement. Then choose "Custom", not "Typical" - you want to choose which parts to install
Step 4: The browser plugins are de-selected for you, and marked as "unsupported". That's because no major browsers support these anymore. But the "player" application is still installed by default. Click the little drop-down arrow and choose "Entire Feature will be Unavailable". You'll then see a little red cross beside "QuickTime Player", and the only component being installed is the compulsory "QuickTime Essentials".
Complete the installation, and you have only installed the "Essentials", the engine you wanted.
You can verify this, by looking in C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime, and you'll see there's no executable you can run. You can also check in the Start Menu apps list: There's a new "QuickTime" group, but it only contains a link to a rich-text "About" file, and another link to the uninstaller.
Voilà. No QuickTime application. No plugins. But the engine you needed.
And UltraKey will now run absolutely fine.
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