f1 for help

[thuse]

On other blog we're trying to talk a guy through some psychological problems
in accepting the Ribbon at the top of the page. He never found the help
icon, that little question mark at the upper rh corner. He claims some
malicious hacker removed it, although his testimony on what he can see isn't
reliable. If you want a suggestion for redesign for free the icon should be
larger, and the word "HELP" should appear next to it.

Back to questions, one of the other guys said "hit F!. That takes you to
help on all MS products." I tried it on my copy of Word, and F1 doesn't
bring up anything. I reported back to the group and another guy said it
works fine on his computer, and posted a screen dump to prove it.

I'm having F1 envy now. Why doesn't F1 get me to help on my system? Could
I have customized it out somehow? Is there any way to make it work? 'Thuse

 

[thuse]

Of course, that is "F1", not "F!" below. Where is the edit icon on this site?

 

[thuse]

-- This issue has bounced around on several threads. Let me answer some of
the questions asked about it on other threads.

Version of Word, from About
Microsoft Office Word 2007 (12.0.6504.5000) SP2 MSO (12.0.6425.1000)

Version of Vista, from Welcome Center
Windows Vist Home Premium
Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo CPU T1700 @1.80 GHz
etc.

Disregard the suggestion on the HELP icon, I'm content to drop that issue.
Please answer the following two questions:

1. Is it the design intent that F1 is equivalent to pressing HELP or ? on
all Word Versions?
2. F1 does not call HELP on my computer now. Is there a way to activate it
to trigger the HELP command?

Thuse in LA

 

[thuse]

More answers to questions asked in other forums. I found those forums rather
hostile, and would prefer to ask and answer questions here

1. One post said I should always use Outlook. I don't want to use Outlook,
I use other options. Is Outlook use mandatory here, or merely good advice?
2. One hypothesis offered was that some other application may have
"hijacked my F1 as HELP equivalent in Word". I tested that hypothesis by
closing everything, rebooting, and loading only Word. I didn't attempt to
control whaever the Start menu brings up.

F1 still did not function as an alternate to the ? icon for bring up HELP.
Does this kill the hijack hypothesis, or is my test inadequate?

3. What other diagnositic tests or tools could I run to determine the cause
of F1 denial?

'Thuse

 

[Bob I]

Reboot the PC, Logon if needed, then click on the Desktop, press F1 key,
Windows Help and Support should open, if not you have some program that
has subverted or reassigned F1.



More answers to questions asked in other forums. I found those forums
rather
hostile, and would prefer to ask and answer questions here

1. One post said I should always use Outlook. I don't want to use
Outlook,
I use other options. Is Outlook use mandatory here, or merely good advice?
2. One hypothesis offered was that some other application may have
"hijacked my F1 as HELP equivalent in Word". I tested that hypothesis by
closing everything, rebooting, and loading only Word. I didn't attempt to
control whaever the Start menu brings up.

F1 still did not function as an alternate to the ? icon for bring up HELP.
Does this kill the hijack hypothesis, or is my test inadequate?

3. What other diagnositic tests or tools could I run to determine the
cause
of F1 denial?

'Thuse

 

[thuse]

Thanks, Bob I. I did this experiment you suggested, twice, and F1 did not
function in the way you described. I don't know if you have an official
position on this website or if you are authorized to speak for MS, but I'd
appreciate your responses to the following questions nonetheless. If we call
this behavior "hijacking", to use another poster's phrase.

1. Are there any tools or procedures to detect which program hijacks F1?
2. Is there a list somewhere of programs known to hijack F1?
3. It is a bit early in this investigation to assign blame, but if you had
to now, would you say the cause of this error is most likely:
a. MS code that is inadequately protected.
b. A character flaw of mine.
c. None of the above, but instead . . .
Thank you. Thuse

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

1. One post said I should always use Outlook. I don't want to use Outlook,
I use other options. Is Outlook use mandatory here, or merely good advice?

For reading answers to questions here? Not at all.

But I suspect that the suggestion was to use Outlook Express (not the same as
Outlook) OR any other program that can read newsgroups, rather than using the
semi-useless MS web view.

2. One hypothesis offered was that some other application may have
"hijacked my F1 as HELP equivalent in Word". I tested that hypothesis by
closing everything, rebooting, and loading only Word. I didn't attempt to
control whaever the Start menu brings up.

F1 still did not function as an alternate to the ? icon for bring up HELP.
Does this kill the hijack hypothesis, or is my test inadequate?

3. What other diagnositic tests or tools could I run to determine the cause
of F1 denial?

If you're feeling really techie, you might try the process/file/registry
monitoring tools from Sysinternals.com (now part of Microsoft).

 

[Bob I]

This group is a peer-to-peer support group for questions about MS Office
applications hosted on a server provided by Microsoft. No official
support here from Microsoft, only volunteers and other folks passing
through. Since you have this issue with the operating system, perhaps
you may ask this in a group for the operating system you are using. As
to a quick answer to the questions you ask( and my opinion only).

1. Anti-malware software Microsoft and 3rd party supplied. Also "hijack
this" forums can be helpful.
2. Programers write new stuff every day.
3. c. something installed by the owner or someone in control of the PC
knowingly installing some "free" software but not understanding the side
effect, unknowingly by not maintaining the security software to prevent
this from occuring.

Either way it is outside the topic handled by the charter for this group.

 

[thuse]

Thanks, Bob I

For the record I use MS security products, Windows One Care and Defender,
and keep them updated punctually. I was a beta tester on One Care and
started using their forum back then. I had the perhaps naive hope that if I
used the security package provided by the same people who provided the O/S
and Word I had the best chance of avoiding hijacking and other malware. I was
pleased to see that their forum kept its same character after the product was
formally introduced.

At that forum the MVPs act as intermediaries between the posters and the MS
developers. To get a question answered such as the design intent of whether
F1 could be expected to be an alternate method to select HELP in Word would
require access to people who look at and develop the code, not user peers.
It's too bad that philosophy doesn't apply here. The MVPs here did suggest
other venues where my question might be addressed. Their function here seems
to be to count requests for improvements from the peer community if the
requestor can figure out the rules for the suggestion queue. Guess it's time
to leave here. Adios.

 

[ebloch]

There is a free program called KeyTweak used to remap your keyboard keys.
When run it will give you the current setting for any key and enable you to
change it.

Look at http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/

I use it to change <CapsLock> to <Shift> and <NumLock> to <Tab>

Eric

 

[thuse]

Wow, ebloch, that sure is tempting! I'd do it right now but I feel maybe I
should research it first to figure out if that is a site that distributes
malware. No offense, but I don't think I should have to get that software
from strangers, but from MS. That way I have at least their concurrence, and
some admission that they have responsibity for fixing what I view as an
unprotected part of their operating system. If they let an application
change it, a better design would be to set something like this back to its
default value upon exit from that application or at least on reboot. This
is something that could be fixed in a future auto update. The tone I got from
some of the other repsonses here seemed to imply it was all my fault, and I
was bumptious to think anyone here should be asked about it. From another
blog:

If you click the ? icon in the upper RH corner to get the HELP menu on Word,
then type F1 in the Search block at the top, you should find the following
icon in the menu that appears:

Work with the Help window
Help > Getting help

It was on the second line for me. After you select this you get text which
starts with the sentence

Click the Microsoft Office Help button in the upper right or the F1 key on
your keyboard to open Help on your computer. [My underline]

We have found the elusive design intent. If F1 doesn't bring up help your
system is broken. Mine is broken, Dennis's works.

I did find the design intent on F1, under the Help (?) command, of all places.

 

[thuse]

ebloch, I tried that key remapping program you pointed us too. It worked
well, and its developer answered questions I asked by email promptly.
Although it didn't fix my F1 is not equal to HELP problem, it did show that a
F1 remap exploit was not the cause of the problem. I've taken my enquires on
the subject elsewhere.

Thanks for your help. It allowed ruling out one hypothesis. 'Thuse
--
Thuse in LA

Wow, ebloch, that sure is tempting! I'd do it right now but I feel maybe I
should research it first to figure out if that is a site that distributes
malware. No offense, but I don't think I should have to get that software
from strangers, but from MS. That way I have at least their concurrence, and
some admission that they have responsibity for fixing what I view as an
unprotected part of their operating system. If they let an application
change it, a better design would be to set something like this back to its
default value upon exit from that application or at least on reboot. This
is something that could be fixed in a future auto update. The tone I got from
some of the other repsonses here seemed to imply it was all my fault, and I
was bumptious to think anyone here should be asked about it. From another
blog:

If you click the ? icon in the upper RH corner to get the HELP menu on Word,
then type F1 in the Search block at the top, you should find the following
icon in the menu that appears:

Work with the Help window
Help > Getting help

It was on the second line for me. After you select this you get text which
starts with the sentence

Click the Microsoft Office Help button in the upper right or the F1 key on
your keyboard to open Help on your computer. [My underline]

We have found the elusive design intent. If F1 doesn't bring up help your
system is broken. Mine is broken, Dennis's works.

I did find the design intent on F1, under the Help (?) command, of all places.


--
Thuse in LA

There is a free program called KeyTweak used to remap your keyboard keys.
When run it will give you the current setting for any key and enable you to
change it.

Look at http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/

I use it to change <CapsLock> to <Shift> and <NumLock> to <Tab>

Eric