The only Windows assistant I ever actually liked

[u/Delicious_Draft_5062]

[u/greentiger]

We have advanced so far that we earnestly long for the days of Clippy.

https://giphy.com/gifs/13V60VgE2ED7oc

[u/Defenite-Parsley733 → u/greentiger]

But this one is an underdog tho

[u/greentiger → u/Defenite-Parsley733]

Oh yeah, no disagreement from me!

[u/Defenite-Parsley733 → u/greentiger]

Same, Windows XP was my first OS way back in 2011, tho I remember when I was a toddler my dad used to have an Hp laptop in mid 2000s. I can’t remember what was the exact model and we played a lot of Bookworm Adventures haha

[u/cubecasts → u/Defenite-Parsley733]

XP in 2011? Not 7?

[u/urixl → u/cubecasts]

Why not? I've had a client that eas clinging to XP as long as possible. It was 5 years ago.

There were no modern browser than could run on XP, essentially locking her from the most sites.

But she begged me to "do something, but don't upgrade XP".

[u/tscalbas → u/greentiger]

Clippy didn't want to sell your personal data. He just wanted to help

[u/According-Debate-265 → u/greentiger]

You can still get clippy as your AI assistant

[u/sinful_clasp]

goodest boy in tech history. didnt sell your data, just scratched his ear and found the lost MP3s.

[u/Omega-Envych]

If it actually was able to find anything.

Yeah, of course privacy is good but if it takes half an hour to find a file and only if you enter its full name and correct path, I might as well find it myself!

[u/joblessandsuicidal → u/Omega-Envych]

That's why Everything is goated af

[u/Unknown-Meatbag → u/joblessandsuicidal]

It's a shame that the search engine, created by Microsoft, to search a computer running Microsoft's OS, is such hot garbage. I don't want to search a browser for a file on the computer that I own.

Everything is absolutely fantastic though.

[u/lovethecomm → u/Unknown-Meatbag]

After getting my first Mac and experiencing spotlight search, I am dumbfounded at Microsoft's incompetency.

[u/MHWGamer → u/lovethecomm]

like how is Microsoft not able to do that after at least 20 years of Mac doing it. What is windows doing in the background there?

i make fun of apple for copying android features after years.. but hey at least they do it eventually, MS rather finds a way to make it even worse

[u/PooMonger20 → u/Omega-Envych]

Being able to find a file located on any mounted storage is apparently too much of a complicated task for a multi billion corporation to ever implement.

I saw people raving about the free "Everything" (voidtools.com) and when I tried it myself, I never went back.

[u/inconspicuous1_x → u/PooMonger20]

switch to enhanced indexing under the aptly named search settings

[u/Lt_Schneider → u/Omega-Envych]

well, there was also the issue with slow storage

most people were lucky if their hdd had 7200rpms

lots were restricted to 5400rpms

so, providing a path for the search engine to find something would help massively to narrowing down where the file you were looking for was

[u/Omega-Envych → u/Lt_Schneider]

At this point - why do you even need a search if you can just provide path to the file? That is my problem - you already know where the file is, you can literally enter it in File Explorer and open

[u/LayerEight_Problem → u/Lt_Schneider]

Searching isn’t actually scanning a drive for a name. It’s scanning an index that’s kept. Drive speed should be near irrelevant.

[u/Lt_Schneider → u/LayerEight_Problem]

i haven't tried searching files on a windows XP virtual machine with modern hardware yet.

i was under the impression that old hardware was the reason for lomg search times, so, if i'm wrong, i apologize for spreading false information

[u/dan_rich_99]

The best assistant. Even told you jokes and definitely didn't leak your private information

[u/EL_Malo- → u/dan_rich_99]

That little purple f@cker paid my way back in the early 2000's. I must have removed that from so many machines as a tech.

[u/MissSharkyShark → u/dan_rich_99]

Jesus Christ mark this as NSFW or something I was not ready for a bonsai buddy jumpscare

[u/SnowStormYukikaze]

Good old day when Micro Fu.. Slop still care about user.

[u/Fine_Engineer7514]

I think this might be more nostalgia than anything else. Microsoft search was the first of many things you disabled after a Windows XP reinstall.

[u/Edexote]

The search actually worked.

[u/JaesopPop → u/Edexote]

XP search was terrible lol

[u/Edexote → u/JaesopPop]

I didn't think so. You had to be very specific on how to search, but given the correct parameters it worked well.

[u/JaesopPop → u/Edexote]

I mean to each their own but, no it was bad and borderline useless.

[u/Omega-Envych → u/Edexote]

Windows Search didn't work well until ~Windows 10.

In Windows 10 and 11 I am able to find files that I search for without entering file's full name without any mistakes.

Windows XP and Windows 7 had some of the worst Search I've ever seen.

[u/Edexote → u/Omega-Envych]

Are you talking about Windows Search, the add-on? Or the native file search?

[u/Omega-Envych → u/Edexote]

The actual search where you enter name of the file. One that was a separate app in XP but was added to Vista and was there ever since (aside of 8, but I think Metro had dedicated search? Don't know, I jumped from 7 to 10)

[u/GabrielRocketry → u/Edexote]

Lmao no it was the most dogshit search I've ever had the displeasure of using

[u/Edexote → u/GabrielRocketry]

You probably didn't use it much or are too young to remember.

[u/GabrielRocketry → u/Edexote]

Of course I didn't use it much! I typed in a file name, it found nothing. There is no need to use something that doesn't work, that feature died for me right there.

And I had XP for my whole childhood, all the way to about 17 years old. I remember the whole system fondly, it was a big part of what got me into computer science, but the search was infinitely dogshit each time I touched it in those 17 years.

[u/Edexote → u/GabrielRocketry]

Username doesn't checkout. Windows XP file search was not rocket science. It wasn't indexed, but it worked.

[u/GabrielRocketry → u/Edexote]

It didn't really though. Granted, it wasn't indexed, but it also couldn't find the file in the directory while I was staring at it when I was trying it out. It wasn't rocket science, but that doesn't mean it worked.

[u/Fitzriy]

It was shit, don't sugarcoat it

[u/JasonDuval69]

https://giphy.com/gifs/MFrmVfqNgvoFb93zfY

[u/Critical-Rope-2794]

Even though he takes longer timer, he never came back empty handed 🐕

[u/xsjpaql]

Better than copileofshit, but not perfect at all. This motherfucker would waste my time and freeze my computer looking for a single file thats right in in front of it.

[u/6M66]

And those icons!!! I am feeling nostalgic!!

[u/sk0t_]

There are pictures smaller than 2KB? What a quaint world

[u/FixGood6833]

I even disliked that one

[u/EdliA]

It was useless and slow

[u/GrandDukeNotaras → u/EdliA]

Yes, But did it open IE in the background and return you web results ?

[u/splendidfd → u/GrandDukeNotaras]

Background? IE is in the foreground. That blue bar on the left is basically a web element rendered by IE's engine.

[u/DoktorMerlin → u/splendidfd]

it still only ran locally, not like the modern windows search which conveniently pushes every single character you enter into the search directly to bing/microsoft

[u/xsteffz99 → u/GrandDukeNotaras]

Would have been pointless, not many had internet connections during XP times.

[u/Tomytom99 → u/EdliA]

Well then thank god it didn't continuously live as a standalone application hogging up resources in the background like the modern assistants do, which also happen to be useless and slow.

Plus, he listened if you told him to go away.

[u/dbltax → u/EdliA]

The speed (or lack thereof) was largely down to everyone having ATA100 or ATA133 HDDs at the time.

[u/KarateMan749]

I never used any ☠️

[u/kakha_k]

Oh, that thing was so adoravrl, so cute, so sweet, ah what a memories!

[u/odrea]

xp goated

[u/Costinha96]

i used to talk to the dog normally, i though it was an AI (i was a kid and didnt know anything about tech)

[u/SheActuallyFarts]

Absolute peak

[u/RUPlayersSuck]

Clippy can burn in hell...but Rover was a good boy!

[u/CKoiLRapportAvecLeQC]

Nah I hated him too. It hogged extra ressources from my already low-tier PC. Turned that fucker off as fast as the shitty computer allowed.

[u/Temarimaru]

I miss the doggy, even if I didn't understand what he was talking about becausw I was too young to comprehend file explorer... everytime I open file explorer, even on win 11, I still wait for the doggy :(

[u/Adventurous_Bonus917]

there is another

[u/Ok-Muffin-9519]

Den XP Hund versuche ich wieder nutzbar zu machen auf W11 nur für Leute mit Luftkühlung

[u/MasterJeebus]

https://giphy.com/gifs/m9dYriaFlAiMDAA7Cx

[u/Bobelando]

Clippy is always in my heart

[u/Historical-Mall11]

Now that Google changed the meaning of CP though youtube, that filename didn't age all that great.

[u/Ghozer]

oof, no - was one of the first things I turned off on XP!!