My operating system is Windows 7.

I'm going to play through some older games of mine but one of them (the very first CSI game) requires Quicktime. The game runs if you don't install it, but... the game uses Quicktime to render character movement. Everything is saved in .mov format. Since I didn't install Quicktime, all I get is white boxes where the videos should play.

I hate QuickTime. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate it. I hated it back in 1998 when I got my first computer and I hate it now.

Is there any way to play the game without installing that horrible program?

Given that they are older games, and thus do not require the latest versions of QuickTime, you might get it working with QuickTime Alternative.

It basically installs the QuickTime codecs and plugins, but without the QuickTime application itself.

I used that years ago, and it worked well but it still did the same thing QuickTime did - it hijacked all my browsers and installed their crappy plugin to play all music or video. Does it still do that?

Edit:
... what the hell? Apparently I have Quicktime 7.6.9 installed. O_o I don't remember installing it!

The browser plugins are optional.

However, the regular version (called just QuickTime Alternative) also contains Media Player Classic. The light version (called QT Lite) does not.

Why not just keep QuickTime installed as long as you keep playing that specific game (only one right?) then uninstall when you're finished? :)