VBA Help file not displayed properly

G'day there One & All,

I recently upgraded from Win XP Home, to Win XP Professional. Not
much of an upgrade really, but I now run the same OS as my work does.

Now that I've successfully got everything running, I've found a
problem with VBA help files. Actually, the help files seem to be OK, but
I think one of the .dll's might have bitten the dust.

When using the Office XP VBE, and using Help, I find that the VB
specific help files don't display properly. The information is there,
but there aren't any links at the top such as "Applies to", or
"Methods", etc. I still have the help, but its usage is limited. Mostly
I now (since about an hour ago) get a MSIE Script Error - "An error has
occurred in hte script on this page" and "Object doesn't support this
property or method". I've seen this message before, applied to my own
code, but I don't expect to see it generated by a MS help page!!

I've reinstalled Office XP, repaired it, reinstalled the VBA Help
files via the "Add or Remove Programs" facility in the Control Panel.
Web searches have only located one single entry with the same symptoms,
and this person solved the issue in 2003 by using a CD install instead
of via his network. While I'm glad he solved the problem, he did so
before anyone else offered any advice. His install problem is not an
issue for me as I'm installing from CD to start with.

I thought that it may be a function of Windows XP itself, but then
why wouldn't the other help pages have problems also?

Can someone perhaps point me to a library file that is used for
these functions? (I may be able to copy a non corrupted file from a
computer at work, but I need to know which one. I'm not about to copy
the entire .dll file list). Or any other advice would also be greatly
appreciated.

See ya
Thanks for listening,
--
Ken McLennan
Qld, Australia

Hi ken,

Are you saying all other Office help files work perfectly?

Please can you first find the VBA help file on your system, identify
what's it's called, and then double click it. Do you get the same error?

It's no secret that Microsoft's CHM help system has become a mess,
especially in the context of recent security updates where all kinds of
functionality will break. There can also be an issue with script if it
does not like your MSIE script settings, or if the links script files
cannot be found for some reason. Make sure "Display a notification about
every script error is ticked" and "Disable script debugging" is unticked
in MSIE:Options:Advanced, then investigate the script errors one by one
using "View:Source" and the script debugger.

Ken McLennan wrote:

G'day there One & All,

I recently upgraded from Win XP Home, to Win XP Professional. Not
much of an upgrade really, but I now run the same OS as my work does.

Now that I've successfully got everything running, I've found a
problem with VBA help files. Actually, the help files seem to be OK, but
I think one of the .dll's might have bitten the dust.

When using the Office XP VBE, and using Help, I find that the VB
specific help files don't display properly. The information is there,
but there aren't any links at the top such as "Applies to", or
"Methods", etc. I still have the help, but its usage is limited. Mostly
I now (since about an hour ago) get a MSIE Script Error - "An error has
occurred in hte script on this page" and "Object doesn't support this
property or method". I've seen this message before, applied to my own
code, but I don't expect to see it generated by a MS help page!!

I've reinstalled Office XP, repaired it, reinstalled the VBA Help
files via the "Add or Remove Programs" facility in the Control Panel.
Web searches have only located one single entry with the same symptoms,
and this person solved the issue in 2003 by using a CD install instead
of via his network. While I'm glad he solved the problem, he did so
before anyone else offered any advice. His install problem is not an
issue for me as I'm installing from CD to start with.

I thought that it may be a function of Windows XP itself, but then
why wouldn't the other help pages have problems also?

Can someone perhaps point me to a library file that is used for
these functions? (I may be able to copy a non corrupted file from a
computer at work, but I need to know which one. I'm not about to copy
the entire .dll file list). Or any other advice would also be greatly
appreciated.

See ya
Thanks for listening,


--
Gerry Hickman (London UK)

G'day there Gerry,

Are you saying all other Office help files work perfectly?

Well, I only looked at one or two pages before, and they were OK.
I just tried a few more and while some were fine, one or two others had
just a single link that didn't show. There's a little box that does
nothing in place of the text.

Please can you first find the VBA help file on your system, identify
what's it's called, and then double click it. Do you get the same error?

Yup!! I just found that all .chm files in c:\Program Files\Common
Files\Microsoft Shared\VBA\VBA6\1033 have the same problem.

does not like your MSIE script settings, or if the links script files
cannot be found for some reason. Make sure "Display a notification about
every script error is ticked" and "Disable script debugging" is unticked
in MSIE:Options:Advanced, then investigate the script errors one by one
using "View:Source" and the script debugger.

I made the changes in the Advanced tab as you suggested, but
there's no script debugger appearing. I'm not getting the error message
that I mentioned previously, either. I DID see that the code for
OLEOBJECTS is the culprit, but I don't know where to go from there. I'll
have another search of the web shortly.

Thanks very much for your assistance and advice. It's greatly
appreciated.


See ya
Ken McLennan
Qld, Australia

Ken,

When using the Office XP VBE, and using Help, I find that the VB
specific help files don't display properly. The information is there,
but there aren't any links at the top such as "Applies to", or
"Methods", etc.

A number of the service packs and critical updates that Microsoft has
released in recent years are known to break the HTML Help ActiveX
control, which is what provides the navigation features in the help
files. This problem is described he

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=822989

Applying Critical Update 811630 probably won't help in your case
because, if you're running XP Pro with the latest updates installed,
you have a more recent version of the HTML Help ActiveX control than
the one supplied in the update. The better solution is simply to
unregister the ActiveX control and then re-register it. To do this,
open a Command Prompt window and type these two commands:

regsvr32 /u %windir%\system32\hhctrl.ocx
regsvr32 %windir%\system32\hhctrl.ocx

It might also be a good idea to run MJ's Help Diagnostics, available
from http://helpware.net/downloads/index.htm#MJs. (The only section of
the MJ's Help Report that is relevant to your problem is the one
headed "HTML Help Run-time Components".)

--
Pete (Microsoft Help MVP)

G'day there again, Gerry,

I made the changes in the Advanced tab as you suggested, but
there's no script debugger appearing. I'm not getting the error message
that I mentioned previously, either. I DID see that the code for
OLEOBJECTS is the culprit, but I don't know where to go from there. I'll
have another search of the web shortly.

I've since found the DOS version of a script debugger, but it was
of little use. (More likely, my lack of knowledge of how it works caused
it to be of little use).

The scripting error returned also. I think it's possible that this
appearance or disappearance of the error message may depend on whether
I'm on-line or not - I see these lines in the script:

style@import url(/Office.css);/style
link disabled rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/MSOffice.css"

which leads me to believe that there might be 2 different style sheets
for each situation... maybe. I could well be reading that without my
"Thinking Hat" on.

However, the script error cites Line 39, Character 1 as the cause
of the problem as it "Doesn't support this property or method". The code
from there is:

38 SCRIPT FOR="document" EVENT="onreadystatechange"_
LANGUAGE="JavaScript"
40 alink0.Click();
41 /SCRIPT

Now, where I go from here is in the laps of the Gods, or will be
guided by the advice I received =)

Thanks very much for your assistance and advice. It's greatly
appreciated.

That is still extant.

--
Ken McLennan
Qld, Australia

Ken,

I see these lines in the script:

style@import url(/Office.css);/style
link disabled rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/MSOffice.css"

which leads me to believe that there might be 2 different style sheets
for each situation... maybe.

Actually, no, the function of these two lines is simply to link the
help topics to the more suitable version of the cascading style sheet,
depending on the user's version of Internet Explorer (IE). Version 3.0
of IE doesn't understand the style tags or "disabled" attribute, so
the MSOffice.css style sheet is used with this version of the browser.
On systems where IE 4.0 or later is installed, the Office.css style
sheet is used instead.

40 alink0.Click();

That's the clue. An ALink (associative link) is an instruction to the
HTML Help ActiveX control to jump to the topic that contains the
specified keyword. That is not happening in your case because the
registry entries for the ActiveX control are broken, and you must
therefore use the solution I described earlier to fix the entries.

--
Pete (Microsoft Help MVP)

G'day there Pete,

Actually, no, the function of these two lines is simply to link the
help topics to the more suitable version of the cascading style sheet,

I knew it would be something strange!! If it wasn't for Excel I'd
be a permanent Linux user. (I don't understand that OS either, but at
least I can read the scripts & config files) g.

40 alink0.Click();

That's the clue. An ALink (associative link) is an instruction to the

Aha!! Perhaps I'm not as thick as I thought I was. I've identified
a clue! Although, even though I found it I didn't know what to do with
it.

registry entries for the ActiveX control are broken, and you must
therefore use the solution I described earlier to fix the entries.

Yes, that's exactly what I did. However, I had to do it about 3
times. In between the 1st & 2nd I installed SP3 for Office, and I got
the last attempt to work by rebooting between the 'unreg' & 'rereg'
phases.

Still, between your expertise & my swearing and cursing it
worked!!! My VBA help is healthy once more and shows the screens I tell
it to.

The swearing and cursing required no skill, but your knowledge was
invaluable. For your assistance, I offer my great & humble thanks.
Without your contribution my computer would have been hurled into the
passing traffic on the roadway out front by now. Thanks very much for
sharing your skills.

Now I'm off to try to write my Excel application for which my
employer *MIGHT* offer thanks and a handshake. If I'm really lucky there
may be a morning tea with coffee & sticky buns =)

Thank you very much once again, your contribution was invaluable.

Good fortune,
--
Ken McLennan
Qld, Australia