Back to "Microsoft Office Assistants"
Q: I hate the Office Assistants. How do I kill them?
A: Ask Clippit. I'd never kill my assistants.
Q: The assistant in Office 2000 has f***** up - I can see the transparent
shape of the assistant where it used to be. What can I do?
A: Kill the AgentSvr.exe process. Your Office program will tell you that the
assistant is dead (well, it won't use exactly those words), and tell you how to
get it back.
Q: FrontPage 2000 is official a part of the Office Suite (if you pay for
a Premium version, at least) - but where are the Office Assistants?
A: The Office Assistants are not integrated with FrontPage 2000.
Q: I somehow managed to uninstall Clippit, but all the other assistants are there.
I can't find any place to download Clippit, and I'm too lazy to look for the Office CD to
reinstall just because of a missing paperclip. Is there a smart way to do this?
A: Yep. Get a copy of the clippit.act file from somebody else (I think this is legal
if your Office in itself is legal). Close all Office programs, and copy clippit.act to the
Actor folder under your Office folder (usually Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office\Actors) (where the other .act files are stored). Restart Office.
Q: I'm going to upgrade from Office 97 to Office 2000. Can I use the Office 97
assistants in Office 2000?
A: No. The Office 2000 assistants are ActiveX based, while the
Office 97 are, ehm, something else (a very hush! secret proprietary format).
Q: If I do not have a full Office 2000 installation, but only one of the
programs, for instance Word, can the Office 2000 assistants run under it?
A: Yeah. If you don't have other assistants than Clippit, you can install
the other from the Office 2000 CD; there might be some legal questions here, I
can't quite see what the consequences will be, but technically, you can get them
there.
Q: I like Microsoft Office Assistants. How do I make my own Office 97
assistant?
A: Office 97: I don't know. Unfortunately :-/
Q: I like Microsoft Office Assistants. How do I make my own Office 2000
assistant?
Office 2000: Ofice 2000 includes Agents, not Actors, as assistants, and
these can be made at home using your own graphics.
You can download a program from Microsoft
or download.com called
Microsoft Agent Character Editor. It's free (remember to download the manual
too!). You can also buy a book from Microsoft Press called "Microsoft
Agent Software Development Kit with CDROM" - it's a manual, programming
guide, design guide, file specifications and CD with the official Software
Development Kit (Character Editor, sample files etc.) in one book (I think it
kind of is a copy of the website, but sometimes it's nicer to have as a
book).
And these agents can be used both in Office2000 and on the Web and in your own
programs. Sounds interesting, right? But be prepared it's one hell of a job! (My
own office assistant includes almost 500 different still images and some 20
sounds).
Q: Do you happen to know any download sites for Office 97 assistants?
A: Only Microsofts
own site. Pick 97 as the version and tick the "Add-ins and
Assistants" check-box.
Q: Where's Rocky for Office 97? He was so cute!
A: Rocky has left the doghouse. Gone forever, it seems. Microsoft removed
him from the download site. He's a regular in Office 2000, but there are no
traces of him in his Office 97 version. No, I don't have the installation file
anymore (I don't run Office 97), so I can't send it to you.
Q: I downloaded a (non-Microsoft) assistant for Office 2000, but it's not
showing up in the Gallery. What's wrong?
A: If the assistant is created with Microsoft Agent Editor, you must have
Agent installed. Some installations of Office puts this in, some does not
(depending on your choices at installation). Download the Microsoft
Agent Core Components, (Pick Downloads in the left pane and go for the one
about Core Components) and it should be working, provided you've installed the
assistant in the proper location.
Q: There are some other Agents for download at the Microsoft Agent site.
Can I use them?
A: You kind of can, yes. Download them (Peedy, Genie, Merlin, Robby) and
install them (run the exe-file). Find out where Windows has put them. Locate
your Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Actors folder. In a typical Windows NT
installation, the path will look something like this:
C:\WinNT\Profiles\[username]\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Actors. In 95/98,
the path will be somewhat similar (usually just replace WinNT with Windows).
Copy the .acs-files into this folder. These are more general types of
agents and are not designed with Office in mind, so they may not have all the
specific Office-animations included. For these agents to work as assistants, you
must have Microsoft Agent installed, of course. (See above). You might get a
Peedy (or similar) icon in your Systray as well :-)
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