I don't understand what you mean.. If the Control Surfaces tab was removed and you later bought a control surface for REAPER, how would you install it?

I didn't realise there was an option not to select that during install. Apologies for my misunderstanding. edit - I see what you mean now... just started the installer to have a look and I found that option. Now I understand your request :)

No problem :) Do I get your votes then?

Just voted. +1 from me!

I'm the king of getting my feature requests called pointless... but i'm going to have to go ahead and ask what the point of doing this is. why does it matter if you have one extra item in the preferences that you don't use? i'm sure you don't regularly go into every preferences option in the first place. I don't think I've seen a daw that doesn't have a control surface section. not that reaper can't be the first to hide it. I just don't quite understand what the negative side of having a preference you don't use in the preferences window.

i don't have a crystal ball but i sense a "live with it" tag lurking on the horizon ;) I know Dstruct excells at weeding out all the little stuff that everyone misses, but imo this is a dead-end if ever i seen one!