Microsoft believes that its animated Office Assistant feature is all the rage. Not everyone agrees. You could get rid of it completely by using the Setup program to remove it from your PC, but then you would also lose the handy plain-English help feature.

Caption: The Office Assistant ù you either love it or hate it. If you hate it, it's easy to remove

Here's how to force the irritating little helper to stay in its cubicle until you summon it. This trick works in all Office suite applications as well.

If the Assistant isn't visible, display it by clicking the Office Assistant icon or by pressing <F1>. Next, right-click the Assistant itself, then select Options from the pop-up menu. In the Office Assistant dialogue box, clear all selected options and then click OK.