Knowledge Base

How to modify or remove Office Assistant Help in Office 2000

Article ID: 203689

Article Last Modified on 1/23/2007

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Office 2000 Premium Edition
Microsoft Office 2000 Professional Edition
Microsoft Office 2000 Small Business Edition
Microsoft Office 2000 Standard Edition
Microsoft Office 2000 Developer Edition

This article was previously published under Q203689

For a Microsoft Office XP version of this article, see 290151.
For a Microsoft Office 97 version of this article, see 162763.

SUMMARY

The Microsoft Office Assistant is an interactive Help feature in Microsoft Office. Its functionality, introduced in Microsoft Office 97, is similar to the Answer Wizard Help feature in Microsoft Office 95.

You can make the Office Assistant less interactive. Certain features, such as Guess Help Topics and Display Alerts, can be turned off so that the Office Assistant provides help only when you request it.

You can also remove the Office Assistant. If you remove the Office Assistant, you disable the ability to ask for help in a natural language, such as "How do I print my document?" Help is still available through the Contents, Answer Wizard, and Index tabs on the Help menu in each of the Office programs, even when the Office Assistant is removed.

MORE INFORMATION

Modify the Behavior of the Office Assistant

To change how the Office Assistant behaves, use the following steps:

If the Office Assistant is not visible, click Show the Office Assistant on the Help menu.
Right-click the Office Assistant, click Options, and then in the Office Assistant dialog box, click the Options tab.
To have the Office Assistant provide minimal help, click to clear all check boxes except:
- Use the Office AssistantRespond to F1 keySearch for both product and programming help when programmingMove when in the wayMake sounds
Clearing the Make Sounds check box is optional because it does not affect when the Office Assistant offers help.
Clear all check boxes in the Show Tips section.
Click OK to close the Office Assistant dialog box.

To Remove the Office Assistant

When you remove the Office Assistant, you disable one of the key features of Office help, the ability to ask natural language questions. To remove the Microsoft Office Assistant, use either of the following methods.

Method 1: Turn Off the Office Assistant

If the Office Assistant is not visible, click Show the Office Assistant on the Help menu.
Right-click the Office Assistant, click Options, and then in the Office Assistant dialog box, click the Options tab.
To make the Office Assistant provide minimal help, click to clear the Use the Office Assistant check box.

Method 2: Remove the Office Assistant Files

NOTE: Microsoft recommends that you do not remove the Office Assistant.

Close all programs and run Office Setup in Maintenance mode.
In the Microsoft Office 2000 Maintenance Mode dialog box, click Add or Remove Features.
In the Microsoft Office 2000: Update Features dialog box, click the plus sign (+) next to Office Tools to expand the features list. If the sign is already a minus sign (-) the features list is already expanded.
Click the symbol next to Office Assistant, and then click Not Available in the list that appears. Click Update Now.

For more information about the Office Assistant, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

199766 OFF2000: Controlling How and When the Office Assistant Appears

202991 OFF2000: One Office Assistant Installed by Default

Additional query words: assistant disable view help change remove OFF2000

Keywords: kbhowto kbconfig kbuninstall kbinfo KB203689