Windows PC users should uninstall QuickTime immediately

Thank you very much Donald for the Heads Up on QT, I've been wanting to get rid of it for a long time but hesitated until I saw your Link and then I went on to read more links about this problem and fingers on the Add-Remove button, Presto, QT is now gone. As for watching movies with the .mov extension, if you have the reliable VLC software installed, no problems.
There are also other methods to watch movies with the .mov extension which can be found by doing research.

Take care
Ray

Interesting article Donald, but don't you need QT to play most games?? Will the app VLC replace that need?

I don't know of any new games that use QuickTime.
Not for PC anyway (I don't know about Mac).

RHEM III from 2007 is the most recent game I can think of that used QuickTime.
Most games that use QuickTime are from the 1990's.

If a game is 1st person, runs in Windows (not DOS), and is from the 1990's, chances are it uses QuickTime. Journeyman Project (1,2,3), Myst, Riven, Obsidian, Morpheus, Lightbringer, Amber, The Arrival, Black Dahlia, CConnections, Chaos Adventure, Byzantine, 9: The Last Resort, Safecracker (1997), Riddle of the Sphinx, Bad Mojo, Beyond Time, Comer, and Qin are examples of 1990's games that used QuickTime. Other than RHEM 1,2,3, the only game from the 2000's that I can think of that used QuickTime is Alida (2003). Myst III only required QuickTime for the Mac version, the Cryo games used their own "Omni 3D" game engine instead of QuickTime. Sierra didn't use QuickTime for Shivers or Lighthouse. None of the Kheops games from the 2000's used QuickTime.

If you're playing an older game that uses QuickTime, you have a reason to have it installed. These sites that say to remove it assume you have no reason to have it installed other than using it to watch videos. VLC (and other modern video players) certainly can't be used to substitute for QuickTime in older games.

But if you're not currently using QuickTime to play a game, you may want to uninstall it -- at least if you're using it on a computer that's online and used for browsing the Internet.

Some of the older games on GOG use "QuickTime Lite" to replace the original QuickTime. It would be interesting to know if "QuickTime Lite" also has the vulnerability.

I think it was Bad Mojo from GOG that installed actual QuickTime instead of the QuickTime Lite, but I may be confusing it with another GOG game.

Jenny100, I have QuickTime Alternative 3.2.2 on my Windows 10 computer for my older games. Do you think QuickTime Lite would be safer.

I don't think there would be much difference between QuickTime Alternative and QT Lite as far as vulnerabilities are concerned.

The Wikipedia page says
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTime_Alternative
Media Player Classic is still being maintained according to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Player_Classic
QT Lite and QuickTime Alternative were abandoned over 5 years ago.
So it's less likely the Media Player Classic addition in QuickTime Alternative would be the source of a vulnerability compared to the QT part.

If your QuickTime Alternative was installed with a game, I'd say to keep what you have. If there's a vulnerability in QuickTime Alternative, there will probably be the same vulnerability in QT Lite.

There is a slight difference in the version of QuickTime Components that they use -- version 7.67.75.0 for QT Lite vs version 7.66.71.0
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/qt_lite.htm
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/quicktime_alternative.htm
while the latest QuickTime version was 7.7.9 and had security updates.
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL837?locale=en_US

So it's actually possible that QuickTime 7.7.9 from Apple has fewer (or different) vulnerabilities than QT Lite and QuickTime Alternative. I don't know enough about what the vulnerabilities are to say.

Of course for games there are other solutions. For my Quest for Glory V installer I extracted the required QT files that the game needs for the cut scenes to pack in the installer. The installer places them in the base of the game's directory so the game has access the right version of QT. This solves compatibility problems the game has with newer versions of QT without that older version of QT installed on the user's PC. Nothing else can use that QT since there is not installed and there is no trace of it in the registry or in any system folders.

How do you tell which QuickTime files a game would need?
For example, I've never gotten GOG's Myst Masterpiece to work on either Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, but Riven and Bad Mojo (also from GOG) work without a problem. Is this something I can fix by copying files QuickTime folders over to the game folder.

You can determine which version it needs from the included installer. If you are not sure which files are needed you can extract and copy them all to the game's folder. Some will be obvious that are not needed, like the QT Control Panel applet and the uninstaller files.

If you are pedantic enough to weed out the unused files you might be able to use the Sysinternals Process Monitor, but then they only take up a few MBs.

GOG used some kind of QuickTime replacement with Myst Masterpiece so I'm not sure which version of QuickTime it would have matched up with. Whatever it is, it doesn't work on my computer. I was wondering if I could try the QuickTime from my boxed version. Can I extract the files without actually running the installer? Is there a utility that does that?

I can't say about Masterpiece since I don't have it, but the original shipped with 2.1. Tools for extracting the files from an installer depends on what it was packed with. I don't remember about QT specifically, but you can try tools like 7-zip, ISCab (for InstallShield installers), Innounp for (Inno Setup installers) or ExtWise (WISE Install installers), though I think the QT installer is unique to Apple. If none of these work try Universal Extractor. If all else fails, install in a VM with a tracker to check what files it writes. If you have trouble, let me know what QT version Masterpiece uses and I'll see what I can do.