This is prompted by my recent download of Microsoft Expression Media 1.0 SP1, formerly iView Pro. Notwithstanding the fact that I had to first uninstall Expression 1.0, the installer presented me with three options. . .
minimal install
custom install
complete install
Not knowing if "minimal" was gonna not install something I might want, and assuming that "complete" would install Swahili language files or something else I didn't want, I went with "custom". There I learned that I had ONE check-able option, which was to install Microsoft Expression Media 1.0 SP1.
Now then, it doesn't take a lot of thought to realize this makes no damn sense. If I un-checked this option, then the installer would install nothing at all. Furthermore, that means that "minimal" and "complete" installs were exactly the same. This entire install-step of asking me "how much" of the product to install was completely pointless. The installer should have just skipped this step directly, but I'm certain that somebody's install-wizard-generator has this panel turned on by default, so they just stuck with it.
Although I guess I'm sympathetic. The project-lead has an active blog out there, and apparently they inherited a lot of bugs when they acquired the product. I reviewed the product in its pre-acquisition form a couple of years ago, and it had problems rendering some truetype fonts that's still not fixed. As long as bugs are actually getting fixed, it's a step in the right direction.
And it's still a better product than Adobe Bridge.
If you pick Custom, often the only option you get is where to store the files.