I'm using qmake as build system in my project. And not using qt sdk. How correctly install qmake without sdk on clean mashine(win7 + msvc). Simple copy bin, mkspec dirrectories wrong result. I can't speciefied qmake tools in QtCreator (invalid profile).
Try this solution. Maybe you already test this method. It slightly different from that what you told in question. They use qt.conf for something. Sorry I don't know for what purpose