The project folder is where the packager spends most of his or her time. The capturing process is just a means to create the project folder. You could just as easily create your own project folder from scratch. I admit, to manually create a project folder representing a Microsoft Office installation would be far from easy but in theory it can be done. There is some default content in all project folders. Let's capture nothing and investigate what these are.
During Setup Capture, to speed things up, disable the majority of the search locations. This way pre and post scans will take close to no time at all.
Run Setup Capture.
In the Ready to Prescan step, click on Advanced Scan Locations….
Exclude all but one location from the scanning, as shown in the following screenhot:
Since we want to capture nothing, there is no point in scanning all locations. Normally you don't have to modify the advanced scan locaions.
After pressing Prescan, wait for Postscan to become available...