Remove The Animated Dog From Your Search! (Windows XP)

When you search for an item in Windows XP, an animated dog automatically appears in the Search Companion to work as your search assistant. If you find the animated dog annoying or distracting, you can remove it from the Search Companion. To remove the screen character from your search, you need to change your search preferences. The other available search options will not be affected by this removal. Here's how you do it!

Click "Start", then "Search" and the Search Results window appears. Now scroll down and click "Change Preferences" and a list appears displaying the various ways you can customize the Search Companion. Click "Without an animated screen character" to remove the animated dog from your screen and the animated dog will leave your search window.

If you decide to keep an animated character in the Search Companion, but don't want the dog, you can choose from several other search characters. To display a different animated character, perform the first few steps but click on "With a different character". Use the "Back" and "Next" buttons to scroll through the available characters, then click "OK" to select the one you want to use.

You can bring back an animated character at any time by clicking "With an animated screen character". The last screen character that you used will reappear and you will have to change to another if this is not the character you want to use.

Now you can perform a search or simply close the search window. Now, wasn't that easy?

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