How to charge an iPhone on a Windows PC without Installing iTunes

This workaround allows the iPhone to charge without a full install of iTunes but it's still a bit of a pain as you can't download the driver directly as far as I can tell.

  • Download iTunes64Setup.exe (about 95MB). If you are on a 32-bit version of Windows download iTunesSetup.exe
  • Use an archive tool like 7-Zip to open the file as an archive. For 7-Zip, right click on iTunes64Setup.exe and select 7-Zip->Open Archive
  • Extract the AppleMobileDeviceSupport64.msi file (about 10MB) to a temporary directory. I presume the 32 bit version is just called AppleMobileDeviceSupport.msi.
  • Run the installer and follow the prompts.

After this my iPhone charges successfully. A bit irritating that you still end up having to download the large iTunesSetup.exe but the best I could come up with!


I was able to get phone to charge by installing Desktop Experience, then installing the driver using device manager.