The IT department has installed Windows Desktop Search on an XP machine
such that when the user clicks on Start | Search, WDS appears. There is
a link at the bottom of the WDS page to "Search Companion" that brings
up the old search utility. Is there a way to create a shortcut as a
direct link to the Search Companion?

Sure, copy below and save as .vbs:

Set wshshell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
wshshell.findfiles

----stop

and/or download line 86 (right hand side):
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP)

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm


"mcp6453" <mcp6453@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23yN5rl7oIHA.4904@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

Kelly wrote:
Kelly, it opens Windows Desktop Search just like the Search button does.
Is there a way to get directly to the original search function?

Kelly wrote:
Kelly, it opens Windows Desktop Search just like the Search button does.
Is there a way to get directly to the original search function?

Hi,

What exactly are you calling the original?

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP)

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm


"mcp6453" <mcp6453@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:480CDB5B.4050305@gmail.com...

Kelly wrote:
If you click on Start | Search from a fresh install of XP, you'd get a
search window. IT installed Windows Desktop Search application. Now,
when the user clicks on Start | Search, she gets the Windows Desktop
search instead of the out-of-the-box Windows search. There must be a reg
hack that intercepts the search button activation.

Kelly wrote:

Anybody?

mcp6453 wrote:

What's the question? Winkey + F not working?

Bob I wrote:
With a fresh installation of XP, if you click on Start | Search, you get
a Windows search utility called "Search Companion." The "Folders"
function has to be turned off to see the name. It is the normal or
original XP search program. It is the one that you expect to see when
you do a search in XP.

IT installed Windows Desktop Search, which is a different program than
Search Companion. Search Companion is built into Windows. Windows
Desktop Search is a different program that must be installed separately.
When WDS was installed, it intercepted the key clicks used to start SC.
Therefore, when the user clicks on Start | Search, instead of getting
SC, she gets WDS. Presumably, WDS made a registry change to intercept
Start | Search and Winkey + F keystrokes to cause Windows to bring up
WDS instead of SC.

So the question is, without removing WDS, how can I put the
functionality back like it was so that Start | Search brings up SC
instead of WDS?

mcp6453 wrote:

That sounds like at a minimum you would need to look through the WDS
uninstall for all the keys that got changed, and then note the contents,
and put them in the registry yourself manually.