visual studio .net documentation: Earlier I saw that many people had experienced the same frustrations
that I had when installing Visual Studio.Net 2003 Enterprise Architect
edition, namely, that even after choosing the third installation
option (install MSDN) and installing successfully, Visual Studio
complains that no help is installed! This happens even if you
uninstall/reinstall the MSDN by using the setup.exe command directly
on the CDs.

The crux of the problem seemed to center around installations like
mine whose version of MSDN was the January, 2003 version (or earlier).
The only solutions I could find in this newsgroup were either: (a) you
probably installed something incorrectly (which was clearly not the
case), or (b) you need to buy a version of the MSDN that is the April
2003 version or older (something that is exasperating when the #$%@
dealer shipped this January 2003 version on a purchase made just last
week!!).

Fortunately, I didn't believe either answer (respectfully) that was
posted in this group, and did some digging and poking around instead.
I have come up upon a solution that has solved my broken MSDN problem
and might well solve yours too.

Here's what to do:

1. Close Visual Studio .NET. Go to START, RUN and type REGEDIT. Click
OK.

2. Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Help\0x0409\{32AF
11EA-A804-47bd-BDAE-31653BD0CDD9} [NOTE: This last number in between
the curly braces is a GUID. Your GUID will likely be different than
mine, but it should be the only one in this location so you can't
possibly select an incorrect GUID.]

3. Select the GUID on the left hand side. Then in the right side of
the
registry editor, select the value named "VS_Docs". Double-click on it.
If the value says "Not supported" you can change it to read "7.1"
(without the quotes).

4. Close the registry editor and restart Visual Studio.

Voila! The ^%$#@-ing annoying broken help messages are fixed once and
for all! This will be especially welcome news (I think) to people
whose bosses (like mine) aren't keen on the idea of shelling out more
$$$ to buy a newer version of the MSDN right away. I **still** intend
to pressure my boss to let me get the latest update of MSDN (always a
good policy, IMHO), but I won't be getting those annoying messages &
will have context-sensitive help in the meantime! :-)

I hope that my posting helps someone else who's in the same boat!

Hi, James

Thank you very much for sharing this with the community.

This will work but using it just bypasses the real issue. The Jan 2003
edition of the MSDN Library does not integrate into the VS.NET 2003 product
by design, the first edition which does was released with the VS.NET 2003
product and is titled MSDN Library for Visual Studio .NET 2003. You can
verify you have installed this edition by its default installation location
of C:\Program Files\MSDN\2003FEB. Previous editions of the MSDN Library are
missing the additional functionality and documentation specific to the 2003
release of the Visual Studio product. If you have received the Jan 2003
edition of the MSDN Library please contact the reseller where you purchased
the media from for replacement media. An alternate source is the Microsoft
Order Desk at 1-800-360-7561, the MSDN Library is not provided separately
so the full product will need to be replaced.

Hope this helps,

John Eikanger
Microsoft Developer Support

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--------------------
| From: jgeorge@ntia.doc.gov (James F. George)
| Subject: Solution to MSDN Install Problems on VS.NET 2003
| Date: 22 Mar 2004 13:34:48 -0800
| X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.vsnet.documentation
|
| Earlier I saw that many people had experienced the same frustrations
| that I had when installing Visual Studio.Net 2003 Enterprise Architect
| edition, namely, that even after choosing the third installation
| option (install MSDN) and installing successfully, Visual Studio
| complains that no help is installed! This happens even if you
| uninstall/reinstall the MSDN by using the setup.exe command directly
| on the CDs.
|
| The crux of the problem seemed to center around installations like
| mine whose version of MSDN was the January, 2003 version (or earlier).
| The only solutions I could find in this newsgroup were either: (a) you
| probably installed something incorrectly (which was clearly not the
| case), or (b) you need to buy a version of the MSDN that is the April
| 2003 version or older (something that is exasperating when the #$%@
| dealer shipped this January 2003 version on a purchase made just last
| week!!).
|
| Fortunately, I didn't believe either answer (respectfully) that was
| posted in this group, and did some digging and poking around instead.
| I have come up upon a solution that has solved my broken MSDN problem
| and might well solve yours too.
|
| Here's what to do:
|
| 1. Close Visual Studio .NET. Go to START, RUN and type REGEDIT. Click
| OK.
|
| 2. Navigate to
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\Help\0x0409\{32AF
| 11EA-A804-47bd-BDAE-31653BD0CDD9} [NOTE: This last number in between
| the curly braces is a GUID. Your GUID will likely be different than
| mine, but it should be the only one in this location so you can't
| possibly select an incorrect GUID.]
|
| 3. Select the GUID on the left hand side. Then in the right side of
| the
| registry editor, select the value named "VS_Docs". Double-click on it.
| If the value says "Not supported" you can change it to read "7.1"
| (without the quotes).
|
| 4. Close the registry editor and restart Visual Studio.
|
| Voila! The ^%$#@-ing annoying broken help messages are fixed once and
| for all! This will be especially welcome news (I think) to people
| whose bosses (like mine) aren't keen on the idea of shelling out more
| $$$ to buy a newer version of the MSDN right away. I **still** intend
| to pressure my boss to let me get the latest update of MSDN (always a
| good policy, IMHO), but I won't be getting those annoying messages &
| will have context-sensitive help in the meantime! :-)
|
| I hope that my posting helps someone else who's in the same boat!
|
| jgeorge@ntia.doc.gov
|

I am having the same problem. Your solution gets rid of the error but if I
press F1 it still says it is not installed. I also can not run the updates.

Thanks alot


[quoted text, click to view]

[quoted text, click to view]

Thanks! This worked for me too. I still am contacting the vendor,
however, to see if they can give me another MSDN CD.

Just curious, when VS.NET starts up, and you click on the tab that
says "Online Resources" or "My Profile" do you get JavaScript errors?