resurrecting Clippy

None of those annoying animations were ever supposed to exist on Windows 7. There was such an outcry, though, that Microsoft created a hotfix that allowed support of their deprecated animation protocol known as Microsoft Agents. Doing a little more digging, I found sources for all of their original agents.

Read the comments prior to each section to find the urls you need to visit to download all of the relevant files. Each of them should produce a file of .ACS extension in the C:\WINDOWS\MSAGENT\CHARS\ directory.  This Powershell script will demonstrate all of them.

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# Demonstration of Microsoft Agent controls.
# NOTE: These agents are deprecated.  They were never supposed to be on Win7.
# http://www.microsoft.com/products/msagent/main.aspx

# The primary Agent control can be downloaded for Windows 7 as a hotfix.
# It will install c:\windows\msagent\chars\merlin.acs, plus other supporting files.
# Download the hotfix from this url:
# http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969168

$MI6 = new-object -com agent.control.2
$MI6.connected = $true

$MI6.characters.load('Merlin','Merlin.acs')
$agent = $MI6.characters.character('Merlin')
$agent.Show()
$agent.think('Hello!  I''m over here!')
$agent.play('Wave')
$agent.moveto(800,600)
$agent.think('I and the other Microsoft Agents are here.')
$agent.Play('Pleased')
$agent.think('I am Merlin.')
$agent.think('Only 1 agent can be loaded at a time.')
$agent.hide()
while ($agent.visible) { sleep -Milliseconds 100 }
$MI6.characters.unload('Merlin')

# You can download the other official agents at these urls.
# Genie  @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4957
# Robby  @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=12327
# Peedy  @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17076
# Clippy @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11215
# list of their animations @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms695821.aspx

$agentlist = @(('Genie','Genie.acs'),('Robby','Robby.acs'),('Peedy','Peedy.acs'),('Clippy','Clippit.acs'))
foreach($name in $agentlist.GetEnumerator()) {
    $MI6.Characters.load($name[0], $name[1])
    $agent = $MI6.characters.character($name[0])
    $agent.moveto(800,600)
    $agent.show()
    $agent.think('Hi, I''m '+$name[0]+'.')
    $agent.play('Wave')
    $agent.hide()
    while ($agent.visible) { sleep -Milliseconds 100 }
    $MI6.characters.unload($name[0])
}

# A Microsoft Office agent no longer downloadable from Microsoft (that I could find).
# Not all animations from above are available on this character.
# Rover @ http://www.tinmith.net/wayne/rover/index.htm

$MI6.Characters.load('Rover','rover.acs')
$agent = $MI6.characters.character('Rover')
$agent.moveto(800,600)
$agent.show()
$agent.think('Hi, I''m Rover.')
sleep -seconds 6
$agent.hide()
$MI6.characters.unload('Rover')

# Non-Microsoft agents that people have developed:
# http://www.msagentring.org/chars.aspx
# http://www.zero2000.com/microsoft-agent-characters.html

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I call this script Clippy.ps1.  I loathed Clippy passionately.  Now, finally, he's my puppet.  Come to the dark side; feel the power(shell)!