This has been discussed several times and I've still not seen a fix that actually works for it. I've tried everything posted here in the forums, newsgroups and on the web with the same results: The Visual Studio 2005 Combined Help Collection along with SQL Books Online are not available.
Pointing Dexplore.exe to here:
ms-help://MS.VSCC.v80/dv_vscccommon/local/CollectionManager.htm
Shows this at the bottom of the page:
I can't remember the list of everything that's supposed to be there but there should be things like:
Visual Studio 2005 Combined Help Collection
Microsoft SQL Server 2005
and a bunch of other stuff...
Now before someone suggests jumping though a bunch of hoops, I already said I tried all known methods to repair this. I've uninstalled and reinstalled VS2005, 2003, SQL2005 Developer, SQL2005 Express, Dec DirextX SDK, etc. Deleted Temporary Internet Files from another Administrator account, tweaked registry settings, ran "beta" uninstall tools. The list goes on.
Currently, with only 2005 Team System and SQL 2005 Developer installed, I'm getting the text I pasted above with the dimmed "Update VSCC" button. Dynamic help works fine. The tree control with the help collections works fine. Search, suprisingly, seems to work now. And even occasionaly the "sync TOC" button is not dimmed. But F1 help is still broken, it always takes me to the MSDN web version of the same content.
So basically, somehow, something in the registry is not getting set properly when installing VS and/or SQL 2005. It seems like this should be a simple fix but I haven't been able to find the proper magic combination of things to do to solve the problem, and apparently, neither can anyone else as I've seen this exact same problem discussed on this forum and elsewhere. I can't imagine why its so hard to just overwrite and/or write the proper registry settings in the installer.
The only solution that seems to actually really work is to format your drive and reinstall your OS. (This OS install is only one month old, it should have at least five more months of usability left...)
Other than this one Show Stopper, I'm really happy with VS 2005. If anyone can come up with a better solution than reinstalling Windows, please post the solution here! Thanks!
O
PS: When viewing these forums "logged in" each time the page loads I get an SSL warning: There's both secure and unsecure content on these pages. Can someone please fix this! :) Its annoying to have to click "yes" each time the page loads!
Visual Studio 2005 Combined Help Collection Broken
SaravananVV
UntiedLogic
Additional: The equivilant page in SQL Books Online that configures the collections gets a JavaScript error. One of the ActiveX controls, the one for the MSDN Archive Collection, doesn't exist.
Maybe that extra info will help someone at MS diagonse the problem.
paxa
jrobuild
Update: Just drove into work to see if my work computer has the same problem and it does. This computer's OS is a few weeks fresher than the other. This one never had any betas or older versions of VS or SQL Server. It was a fresh OS with a fresh loadup of VS and SQL Developer.
Order of install was:
2.0 Framework via Windows Update
SQL 2005 Tools and Books Online from SQL 2005 Developer DVD
Visual Studio 2005 Professional + SQLExpress from VS 2005 Pro DVD
I can't believe this computer has the problem as well. I'm really amazed that this issue even exists (especially since the issue wasn't around in Beta 1 or Beta 2). I'm stunned. Flabbergasted even. I was really hoping that formatting and reinstalling the OS on the other computer was going to fix this but since this current computer is freshly loaded obviously the solution isn't to install VS + SQL Dev on a virgin OS.
I'm out of ideas at this point. I hope someone can come up with a fix!! :)
Microsoft people: I'm willing to try any new suggestion to get this repaired. I'd love to see a download called something like a "FixDexploreMissingCollection.exe" download that just makes the help start working properly but I'll settle for fooling around in the registry and pasting stuff into these forums if it will help expadite a solution!