Solution to search companion issue after installing sp2

February 8th, 2005, 3:54 pm

I finally resolved the issue of having lost Window's search feature (Start>Search) after installing service pack 2. As I described in another thread some months back, when trying to use search, I would get a error message that some files needed to run search companion were missing, and the only thing displayed on the screen was the companion icon, in my case a dog.

Thanks to CaptainPiracy over at Short-Media Forum, it's possible to revert back to Windows 2000 search interface by adding a key to the registry.

This key is added in the registry at:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\CabinetState]

If you would like to add this entry without going into the registry, download the zip file named nodog.zip found on page three of this thread at Short-Media forum, unzip the file, doulble-click it and answer yes at the prompt.

http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?p=241762&posted=1#post241762

You can add it to the registry manually by navigating to the CabinetState folder, going to Edit>New>Key, right-click on the new key and rename it to "use search asst" (do not use the quotes). Then double-click the key and add "no" to it's Value data (again, do not use quotes).

Shown below is the key added named "use search asst" with a data value of "no" which turns off the search companion dog allowing the search feature to load properly.


It's nice to have this feature working again. I hope this helps some of you that have experienced the same problem.

[ATNO/TW]

February 8th, 2005, 4:20 pm

Thanks for the update and tip. Good to see you got it working again. I will probably try to find that old post and merge this with it so there is an answer there.

February 8th, 2005, 8:11 pm

There is one error in my post above. When adding the new key to the registry, instead of going to Edit>New>Key, it should read:

Edit>New>String Value

And most importantly, backup the registry before making changes.