Why can’t I add or remove accessories on my Windows 2000 Professional machine?

A. Start the Control Panel Add/Remove Programs applet and select Add/Remove Windows components. In the section Accessories and Utilities, click Details to add accessories (e.g., calculator, games). If one of the options you want to add or remove is missing, you can add it.

1. Start Notepad.
2. Open the file \%systemroot%\inf\sysoc.inf.
3. Find the old base components section, which the following example shows, and remove the word HIDE. For example, change

    Games=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,games.inf,HIDE,7
    AccessUtil=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,accessor.inf,HIDE,7
    CommApps=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,communic.inf,HIDE,7
    media_clips=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,mmopt.inf,HIDE,7
    MultiM=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,multimed.inf,HIDE,7
    AccessOpt=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,optional.inf,HIDE,7
    Pinball=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,pinball.inf,HIDE,7
    MSWordPad=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,wordpad.inf,HIDE,7 

   to

    Games=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,games.inf,,7
    AccessUtil=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,accessor.inf,,7
    CommApps=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,communic.inf,,7
    media_clips=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,mmopt.inf,,7
    MultiM=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,multimed.inf,,7
    AccessOpt=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,optional.inf,,7
    Pinball=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,pinball.inf,,7
    MSWordPad=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,wordpad.inf,,7 

4. Save the file.

You don’t need to reboot the machine.