What is suggesting is that you insert the XP CD and reload part of the
operating system.

That is fine is you happen to have the XP CD that was used for the original
installation. The advice is of little value, if your PC came with XP
pre-installed.

If you suspect a problem with the XP updates, you may be able to uninstall
them via the add/remove programs option.

But, in fairness to Microsoft, their updates only rarely cause problems.

You might also want to try some web searches like "fix search" or "repair
search".

The best thing would be to have an image of the C: partition before the
problem happended. Then, you could revert back to that time, and slowly
creep foward with updates and/or other changes. However, most users do not
see the value in such backups, until it is too late.

"bpa_retired" <bparetired@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:59B497B8-5E3C-435C-9ECE-D0CE540B5582@microsoft.com...
> Today I tried to use the Windows 'Search' utility and encountered a
> problem.
>
> Upon clicking on 'Search' (from START menu) an ERROR window was displayed
> with the message " A file that is required to run Search Companion cannot
> be
> found. You may need to run setup."
>
> I am not sure what 'You may need to run setup' means.
>
> Yesterday morning the (2) May Windows Updates were installed --with no
> noticeable after effects. Yesterday afternoon the 'Search' utility was
> indeed used with no problems. After turning the PC on this morning the
> utility does not work.
>
> OS is WinXP Pro SP3 with current updates.
>
> Help/suggestions would be appreciated.