Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual

Start→Search

The humble Search command looks no more special than anything else on the Start menu. In Windows XP, however, it’s a newly revised powerhouse that’s far more complex to navigate. You’ll probably use it often.

The Search function can quickly find all kinds of computerish things: file and folder icons, computers on your network, Web sites, email addresses, and phone numbers.

NOSTALGIA CORNER Who Let the Dog Out?

Microsoft is at it again, adding cutesy cartoon characters to its software. Fortunately, the Search program works just as well without the dog as with it.

If you’d just as soon not have little Rover eyeing you with his little anthropomorphic 3-D eyes while you do your searching, it’s easy enough to get rid of him. Click directly on the animated character to open up the panel illustrated here.

Click “Turn off the animated character” to get rid of the dog. (You must still sit through one final animation while it saunters away.)

On the other hand, if this kind of thing seems to make computers less intimidating for you, click “Choose a different animated character” instead. You’ll find that Microsoft has provided not just one, but several provocative little characters that can occupy the bottom of your Search panel—a wizard, some yuppie woman in a flying car, and a surfboard kid whose face appears to be made of a banana. Click Next until you see the one you want, and then ...