Knowledge Base

OFF97: Office Assistant Not Removed in Maintenance Mode Setup

Article ID: 162420

Article Last Modified on 1/19/2007

Microsoft Office 97 Standard Edition
Microsoft Access 97 Standard Edition
Microsoft Excel 97 Standard Edition
Microsoft Outlook 97 Standard Edition
Microsoft PowerPoint 97 Standard Edition
Microsoft Word 97 Standard Edition
Microsoft Project 98 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q162420

SYMPTOMS

After you use maintenance mode Setup to remove the Office Assistant, it still appears when you start Microsoft Office.

CAUSE

The Office Assistant is a shared application and will not be removed until all the supporting applications (clients) are removed. The Office Assistant clients are Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Word, the Office Shortcut Bar (OSB), Binder, Outlook, and PowerPoint.

WORKAROUND

To prevent the Office Assistant from reappearing, you must remove all .act files from the following location on your hard disk:

<drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Actors

The Actors folder may contain several .act files if you have changed your Office assistant character.

MORE INFORMATION

The following Office Assistant files are installed in the \Office\Actors folder:

Clippit.act
Dot.acp
Genius.acp
Hoverbot.acp
Logo.acp
Mnature.acp
Powerpup.acp
Scribble.acp
Will.acp

Note that the Clippit character file has the .act (actor) extension because it is the default character used for the Office Assistant. The other eight files that are installed have the .acp (preview) extension which allows you to preview these characters on the Gallery tab of the Office Assistant dialog box.

When you change the Office Assistant character, the .act file for that character replaces the .acp file in the \Office\Actors folder. The previous character's file remains an .act file; it does not change to an .acp file.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

155143 OFF97: One Assistant Character Installed With Complete Setup

Additional query words: 97 8.00 word8 word97

Keywords: KB162420