"Help topics not available" error in Access 2000.

[Clay Reitsma]

When I try to view certain help topics in Access 2000 I get a message that
the "help topic is not available". Anyone out there know how to resolve this
problem?

 

[Chris Mills]

Access 2000 Help is known to be completely screwed up, and Microsoft decided
to do nothing about it, bless their hearts. If you can get hold of Access97,
regardless of anything else it has a sensible Help system.

Mind you, it's usually simply unhelpfull. Maybe you can just reinstall, as
it's not enough info to tell if your PC isn't just screwed up.

Chris

 

[Lou Arnold]

The problem with Access help is well known and doesn't improve between
V97 and V2000. However, I believe that you may find extra information
on the web...ex:
http://www.devguru.com/Technologies/ado/quickref/ado_intro.html

In addition you may find latter sections in the Content tab (rather
than the Index tab of the MS Access Help tree.

I think that MS has made more help files available, so search their KB
for key words for "help files" for MS Access 2000.

Lou Arnold
Ottawa

 

[Ernie]

Did you install Access yourself, or do you know the person
who istalled it? If so, can you find out if they checked
the box for 'full install' or 'typical'?

Personally, when I install any MS product, I use "custom"
and then make sure every box is checked (except multiple
languages, which I won't use ever). Even under "full"
install, some options remain unchecked.

At my office, we have some pc's setup with "typical" and
some with "full" access/office installs. Those with "full"
have more and better help screens available to them.


Just a thought

HTH

 

[Chris Mills]

Those with "full"

have more and better help screens available to them.

I don't believe that, unless you mean "VBA Help" as against "Access Help".

If you insist, give the help filenames.

Chris

 

[Steven Parsons [MSFT]]

Hi Clay -

This is Steven from Microsoft Access Technical Support replying to your
newsgroup post.

There were a couple of issue with Access 2000 and its Help files. One of
the issues is discussed on the following web page:

ACC2000: You Repeatedly Receive "Preparing Index for First Use" Message
When You Use Help
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;259929

Another issue that may be undocumented had to due with a specific install
conflicts between Access/Office 2000 and Windows 2000, in which some of the
*.chm files from the Office/Access 2000 CD were not properly installed to
the drive during Setup.exe. The solution was to manually copy the *.chm
files from the CD into the appropriate folders. For example, the Ado210.chm
is at \Pfiles\Common\System\Ado on the CD. This would translate to the
following location on the hard drive: \Program Files\Common
Files\System\Ado. Another example is Dao360.chm stored at
\Pfiles\Common\Msshared\Dao on the CD. This CHM file would need to be
copied to \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Dao. I hope these
examples help.

Please let me know if this solves your problem or if you would like further
assistance. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Steven Parsons [MSFT]
Microsoft Access Product Support Services
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Get Secure! (http://www.microsoft.com/security)