Help and Support not working

For two or three weeks now, I have noticed the Start|Help and Support no longer works. When I click on it, the hourglass shows for a couple of seconds and then nothing else happens. I have tried quite a lot of "fixes" from reg files, vb files and even registry checks (comparisons) but everything appears to be absolutely normal. With one exception, it doesn't work.
So I'm hoping that perhaps someone on this BB might be able to help me fix this rather perplexing mystery.
Regards

 

Are you familiar with Kelly's korner site? Have you tried running through her gambit of fixes:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_h.htm

Scroll down to help

Looks like quite a few known causes and fixes. When you find the right one please remember to update post.

 

Help and Support

Thanks for that, but I have tried everything in there several times to no avail. There was, however, one item that might be interesting.
In one part of Kellys site, it says to look for and delete
c:\windows\pchealth\helpctr\config\news\NEWSVER.XML
But my folders only go to c:\windows\pchealth\helpctr. But I don't know if that is significant or not.
Regards

 

Help and Support

No! I haven't ever used EasyClean, but I have previously tried the fix anyway, but it didn't fix it!
Regards

 

Is this an oem system? Perhaps an additional OEM bug has been thrown into the mix. For example I have an HP at home which has a modified OEM "Help and Support ".

 

Help and Support

No! It's not OEM. It's XP Pro though if that's any help. When I re-installed it a couple of months ago, Help and Support was working OK. And then, one day it wasn't. As I didn't use it all that much, I'm not exactly sure when, or even what might have caused it to stop.
But it sure is elusive!
Regards

 

Check Services it should be on automatic and started. It looks like you tried most of the things.

 

Help and Support

Hi there!
Yes, it has always been set to Automatic and started.
Regards

 

Click Start - Run and type:-

helpctr -regserver

If that does help to ... erm ... restore Help, right-click on the pchealth.inf file and choose Install

BTW, the file is hidden by default, so you'll need to "unhide" both hidden files and folders and extensions for know file types.

You'll be prompted for your XP CD during the installation.

HTH.

 

Hi
I've already tried that!
Regards

 

Maybe try a Repair installation?

 

Looking for needles in the haystack now:

Worth a shot:
Here's the idea:
google groups


Here's the old update used:
mscom update

 

Help and Support

Hi again
Yes, I've actually been thinking about doing a Repair for quite a while now, mainly because the problem seemed to be "unfixable "?
So, I did it this morning and Help and Support now works again.
I would like to thank all those contributors who offered advice, even though none of it worked.
Thanks again
Terry

 

Does this mean that you have no more folders inside the Helpctr folder? If so, they got deleted. A reinstall may be needed if the "inf" fix didn't work.

EDIT: Oops! Didn't read the very last post.

 

i had that same problem a while ago. it was caused by a windows update. i cant remember which one. you will have to do some research at the windows update site. also look in add/remove programs to see which updates you have installed or you can go into c:/ windows folder and see which updates you have then do some research on them. if you find the one thats causing the problem remove it. then install these updates first, 323255 and 811630 if you want to reinstall the one you removed.

 

Hi p spino
That's very interesting indeed. When I repaired XP, I used the original CD rather than the SP1 CD I created a couple of weeks ago. I did this mainly because of all the problems people seem to be having with this particular CD. When everything was up and running again, I then just installed the single SP1 update, whereas previously I had installed them all regardless as to whether I needed them or not. This is because there were quite a few little, silly things happening to my PC as well. One of these in particular was that the PC would just stop every now and then, in different programs, and for no apparent reason that I could determine. This included the Mouse and Keyboard (both Wireless) and also CTRL-ALT-DEL so I could never see which program was causing it to stop.
Anyway, it's all working now and I just have one little question. In the Windows folder there are a few folders (Blue) starting with $NT or $XP. I think these are in case I want to restore or remove the SP1 Update. I assume that if I don't want to do that, then it would be OK to delete these folders?
Regards