Need help with VBA help

[Guest]

I am using Excel 2003 with all updates. When I type a keyword into the VBA
"Type a question for help" text box, I get a list of entries as normal.
When I position the cursor over any of the entries, it turns into a hand
with a pointing finget, indicating that the list item is a link. This is
also normal.

When I click on some of the items, I get a window telling me about that
item as I should. However, when I click on other items, nothing at all
happens. It seems that approximately one-half of all the items exhibit
this behavior.

I have tried reinstalling Excel but that does not fix the problem. Any
suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Gary Keramidas]

i have a fix you can try.
first of all, this is only for running excel 2003 on a windows 7 pc. if
you're not, don't even bother reading the rest.

as a test, type mod into the vba help field and make sure that mod is one
of the items that doesn't work. that's the problem i had.
if it doesn't work, try this, i had to sort this out last week. if it does
work, do not apply the following fix. i had 3 excel installs that had the
same problem and this fixed it. i posted here back on 3/2 "vba help issue".

open notepad and paste the lines between the dashed lines. when you save
it, give a name with the .reg file extension. (excel fix.reg)

then double click it and merge it into the registry. use at your own risk,
but like i mentioned, fixed all 3 problems for me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Components\71CE92CC2CB71D119A12000A9CE1A22A]
"1033\\vblr6.chm"=hex(7):28,00,66,00,27,00,5e,00,56,00,6e,00,2d,00,7d,00,66,00,\
28,00,5a,00,58,00,66,00,65,00,41,00,52,00,36,00,2e,00,6a,00,69,00,4f,00,66,\
00,66,00,69,00,63,00,65,00,56,00,42,00,41,00,48,00,65,00,6c,00,70,00,49,00,\
6e,00,74,00,6c,00,48,00,69,00,64,00,64,00,65,00,6e,00,3e,00,42,00,33,00,42,\
00,7d,00,45,00,54,00,55,00,6c,00,66,00,28,00,45,00,4c,00,64,00,71,00,46,00,\
67,00,6b,00,57,00,5f,00,42,00,00,00,00,00

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply. Wow, I would be interested in knowing how you came
up with that fix! That might help me to understand what is happening and
how to find an fix on XP.

I should have mentioned that I am running XP Pro with all current updates,
so I didn't try your fix. I am quite familiar with the registry and have
done a lot of registry editing.

I did try typing "mod" as you suggester. The 4 result items were: "Mod
Operator (Visual Basic for Applications)", "Row Property", "ScreenUpdating
Property", and "Column Property". Clicking on the 1st, nothing at alll
happened. Clicking on the others worked fine.

i have a fix you can try.
first of all, this is only for running excel 2003 on a windows 7 pc. if
you're not, don't even bother reading the rest.

-- clip --

 

[Gary Keramidas]

well, go ahead and check the registry key value that i posted and see if it
is missing. i only saw the problem with win 7 in the last few weeks.

how i came up with the missing key was a session with process monitor. i ran
it and while i clicked on a help link that would not function. i then
filtered and examined the results to see what was happening and found some
errors.

i do have a working win7 copy, so i did some comparisons an finally found
that this key was missing.

the help items that didn't work all reside in vblr6.chm. the file is present
in the correct folder, just the registry key that tells excel where to find
it was missing. so i exported the key from my good win 7 install and
imported it into my win 7 installs.

took a while, but it fixed my problem.

 

[Gary Keramidas]

did you ever come up with a solution?

 

[Guest]

did you ever come up with a solution?

YES!! Your fix worked perfectly!! Sorry for the long delay but I just
tried the fix today. Now, I wonder why this was missing from the registry
and why reinstalling Excel did not help.

Many thanks!!