Help Search doesn't work

Visual C# IDE

Wuschba

Hi. I switched from XP to Vista. Now, in my VisualStudio 2005, I cannot use the help anymore. For example when doing a search for "TabControl", I got this URL:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/Message-MSDN.htm aspxerrorpath=/en-us/library/ms749171.aspx
Which is just saying that "Sorry, we were unable to service your request.".

What could be wrong


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Re: Visual C# IDE Help Search doesn't work

TaylorMichaelL

Ok so you're using the online version of MSDN. Here are the steps I would recommend that you use to diagnose the problem:

  1. Confirm you are running VS2005 SP1 with the Vista refresh
  2. Verify your help settings in Tools\Options -> Environment -> Help
    1. Online -> Try online first, then local (or Try local first, then online)
    2. Are you using external or integrated help (General)
    3. In general you won't get anything displayed initially as the list of potential sites will be displayed in a separte list. You would then be able to select a specific site. Do you get any sites listed Do all of them generate the same error
  3. Unlikely but check your firewall to ensure that VS2005 is not blocked (for integrated help) and Dexplore (for external help)
  4. Can you access the information outside VS2005 The URL for TabControl is http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/ms749171.aspx
  5. Do other help features like the contents or the index work

Michael Taylor - 7/11/07

http://p3net.mvps.org


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Re: Visual C# IDE Help Search doesn't work

Wuschba

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, the refresh is installed.

I disabled all firewall-stuff, without any effect.

But: It works when using the external help viewer.
And it works, when copy&paste the correct URL into the internal help viewer manually.

Strange enough, using the internal viewer, no local help-items are found for "TabControl". The extrernal viewer shows 314 hits.

I use Vista with UAC enabled. I come across lots of lots of problems with that. So could it be that this is the problem




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