An Agent Character Preview (ACG) file is a file format used by Microsoft Agent to preview Microsoft Office Assistant characters. It debuted with the release of Microsoft Office 2000 as a lightweight way to preview Office Assistants before selecting or installing them before being discontinued with the release of Microsoft Office 2007 following the deprecation of the Office Assistant feature and eventually Microsoft Agent itself in 2009.[1]
Usage
In Microsoft Office, assistants are shown in a gallery/selection UI where the user can preview an assistant's look and behavior before choosing it. Office installs (or references) an ACG preview file for each assistant alongside the full .ACS version of the character.
The .ACG extension is registered with the ProgID "Agent.Preview.2" and is associated with Microsoft Character Animation Data Provider (AgentDp2.dll). [2]
Structure
Like version 2.0 .ACS files, .ACG files are also a binary format that begin with the same file signature as Microsoft Agent 2.0 character files. However, .ACG files are optimized to only contain character metadata and the "Wave" animation of the Microsoft Agent character, making them a convenient and lightweight format for previewing the various assistants. Due to the similarities, it is possible to change the file extension of an ACG file to .ACS and be able to load the character normally.
