I used the annoyances.org search page and searched for "Take a tour of Windows XP" 
to find out how to remove that annoying pop-up. But the results showed that a much 
longer query was submitted:
--------------------------------------------------
Annoyances.org Search Results
Query: '(take or taking or taketh or takings or taker or takes or takers or mistake 
or mistakenly or mistakes or take or taken or takes or whittaker) and a and (tour 
or toured or touring or tourer or tours or touristen) and (of or 426917woof or 426917woof271828 
or 426917woof271828arf or 426917woof271828arf314159 or 426917woof271828arf314159spam 
or alotof or alotoflawyers or alotofmoney or coffee or coffeedrinking or coffeemake 
or coffeemaker or coffin or coffinlike or defaultprofile or doesmicrosoft or doesmicrosoftget 
or doesmicrosoftgettoo or doesmicrosoftgettoomuch or doesmicrosoftgettoomuchinfluence 
or easytofollow or eof or everypreviousreleaseof or everypreviousreleaseofwindows 
or extramicrosoftdotnet) and (windows or window or windowed or windowing or comwindows98 
or comwindows98downloads or comwindows98downloadscorporate or comwindows98downloadscorporateas 
or environmentwindows or everypreviousreleaseofwindows or journalistsayswindows or 
journalistsayswindows95 or journalistsayswindows95is or journalistsayswindows95isbugfree 
or microsoftcomwindows98 or microsoftcomwindows98downloads or microsoftcomwindows98downloadsco 
or morewindows or nonwindows or ofwindows or previousreleaseofwindows or releaseofwindows 
or sayswindows or sayswindows95 or sayswindows95is or sayswindows95isbugfree or subwindows 
or vistawindows or windows) and (xp or 20002003xp or 20002003xpvista or 2000xp or 
2003xp or 2003xpvista or 9598ment2000xp or 98ment2000xp or expand or expanded or 
expect or expectations or expected or expects or expense or expensive or experience 
or experienced or experiences or experiencing or experiment or experimental or expert 
or experten or experts or expire).'

I'm afraid there were no documents matching your query. 
------------------------------------------------

Some of it looks like it is trying to substitute similar words, but some of those 
terms do not look very similar. Is it doing the correct thing or has the web-site 
been hacked?

Tip: Run a free scan for common Windows errors ad

re: annoyances.org strange search query Friday, November 6, 2009 at 2:34 pm Posted by Michael (4 messages posted) I found on another web site the way to disable the Windows XP Tour balloon: 1. Open the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe). 2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Tour. 3. Double-click the RunCount DWORD value. 4. Enter 0 in the Value Data text box, and click OK. 5. Close the Registry Editor, and restart Windows XP. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: annoyances.org strange search query Friday, November 6, 2009 at 2:34 pm Posted by Steve (23810 messages posted) I clueless on the search query, but just start the Tour once, and then click out of it. It shouldn't run again, at least it never has for Me. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: annoyances.org strange search query Friday, November 6, 2009 at 2:36 pm Posted by Ricer46 (23825 messages posted) I think it's more likely that your system has the problem. Annoyances simply uses Google to search the forum. A better search would have been to use Google and "Remove Take a tour of Windows XP" which if I remember correctly is fixed by simply deleting the darn file. This is what you should have gotten On Friday, November 6, 2009 at 2:23 pm, Michael wrote: >I used the annoyances.org search page and searched for "Take a tour of Windows XP" >to find out how to remove that annoying pop-up. But the results showed that a much >longer query was submitted: >-------------------------------------------------- >Annoyances.org Search Results >Query: '(take or taking or taketh or takings or taker or takes or takers or mistake >or mistakenly or mistakes or take or taken or takes or whittaker) and a and (tour >or toured or touring or tourer or tours or touristen) and (of or 426917woof or 426917woof271828 >or 426917woof271828arf or 426917woof271828arf314159 or 426917woof271828arf314159spam >or alotof or alotoflawyers or alotofmoney or coffee or coffeedrinking or coffeemake >or coffeemaker or coffin or coffinlike or defaultprofile or doesmicrosoft or doesmicrosoftget >or doesmicrosoftgettoo or doesmicrosoftgettoomuch or doesmicrosoftgettoomuchinfluence >or easytofollow or eof or everypreviousreleaseof or everypreviousreleaseofwindows >or extramicrosoftdotnet) and (windows or window or windowed or windowing or comwindows98 >or comwindows98downloads or comwindows98downloadscorporate or comwindows98downloadscorporateas >or environmentwindows or everypreviousreleaseofwindows or journalistsayswindows or >journalistsayswindows95 or journalistsayswindows95is or journalistsayswindows95isbugfree >or microsoftcomwindows98 or microsoftcomwindows98downloads or microsoftcomwindows98downloadsco >or morewindows or nonwindows or ofwindows or previousreleaseofwindows or releaseofwindows >or sayswindows or sayswindows95 or sayswindows95is or sayswindows95isbugfree or subwindows >or vistawindows or windows) and (xp or 20002003xp or 20002003xpvista or 2000xp or >2003xp or 2003xpvista or 9598ment2000xp or 98ment2000xp or expand or expanded or >expect or expectations or expected or expects or expense or expensive or experience >or experienced or experiences or experiencing or experiment or experimental or expert >or experten or experts or expire).' > >I'm afraid there were no documents matching your query. >------------------------------------------------ > >Some of it looks like it is trying to substitute similar words, but some of those >terms do not look very similar. Is it doing the correct thing or has the web-site >been hacked? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: annoyances.org strange search query Friday, November 6, 2009 at 6:39 pm Posted by Johnb33 (2283 messages posted) It has always worked like that for me as well. On Friday, November 6, 2009 at 2:34 pm, Steve wrote: >I clueless on the search query, but just start the Tour once, and then click out >of it. It shouldn't run again, at least it never has for Me. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: annoyances.org strange search query Friday, November 6, 2009 at 9:59 pm Posted by Mozark (255 messages posted) I never take the tour on my installs, on start-up, I delete the system tray icon, start menu icon never had it pop afterwards [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: annoyances.org strange search query Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 4:32 am Posted by Michael (4 messages posted) That's what I've been doing. But I manage a lab of almost 100 PCs, and that thing pops up on all of them for everybody the first time they happen to log in to a particular computer. So, I need something permanent that I can deploy to all of them at once. If it works, the registry change I posted earlier can be deployed through domain policy. I'll try it next week. But the point of this post wasn't about that, it was the strange way the search query turned out. On Friday, November 6, 2009 at 2:34 pm, Steve wrote: >I clueless on the search query, but just start the Tour once, and then click out >of it. It shouldn't run again, at least it never has for Me. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: annoyances.org strange search query Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 4:42 am Posted by Michael (4 messages posted) I originally did this search from a PC at work. Since you've written this post, I did it again from my Mac at home. Both had the same result. So, it's definitely not a problem on the client end. It's still happening now even after there *is* a discussion thread with exactly those terms (this thread). Regardless of the results from a different set of search terms. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: annoyances.org strange search query Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 7:11 am Posted by Ricer46 (23825 messages posted) Well when I did the search, I got exactly what one would have expected. Did you click on the link I provided? That is the results of the search you described. I don't see anyway that the search criteria can be changed as you have described. On Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 4:42 am, Michael wrote: >I originally did this search from a PC at work. Since you've written this post, I >did it again from my Mac at home. Both had the same result. So, it's definitely not >a problem on the client end. It's still happening now even after there *is* a discussion >thread with exactly those terms (this thread). > >Regardless of the results from a different set of search terms. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: annoyances.org strange search query Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 8:27 am Posted by Steve (23810 messages posted) You should have used Disable XP tour. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: annoyances.org strange search query Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 8:31 am Posted by Steve (23810 messages posted) google XP Nag Disabler VBScript; see if that is what you want done [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows XP Discussion Forum