office 2007 help files

hi guys,

i installed office 2007. problem with access, word and powerpoint help
files, corrupt? regarding excel, help table of contents is there but when i
click an option, nothing happens, why???

can anybody help me where i can get download office help files?

thanks a lot!

[Johnbes]

Hi, I'm John from Microsoft. Please take a look at the thread I recently responded to at Office Online Help Problem Not sure what else to do. If that doesn't address your issue, here's a few questions to help start a diagnosis of the issue.

1. What OS are you currently running and did you customize your install in anyway? For instance, was 2007 installed on top of a previous version of Office, did you customize your setup, are you potentially not running as an admin?
2. What kind of internet connection do you have, Corpnet, Cable, DSL, dialup?
3. Are you running any frewall software?
4. Can you browse to Office.Microsoft.com without any issues?
5. Try changing the Help Viewer to Offline Mode, here's the steps to get Help offline.
a. Click on the "Connect to Office Online" dropdown menu, its at the bottom right corner of the Help Window in the status bar.
b. Select "Show only content from this computer"
c. You should now be offline, make sure you can access local help.

Hopefully we'll have this solved quickly, talk to you soon!

[Emp Wes]

I have a similar problem. When ever I try to access the help from any
Office program I recieve the following msg box:
Office 2007 Enterprise
Application name Microsoft Word
Version 12.0
Build 4518
Product ID 81599-871-0048002-65617

I should have followed up sooner, just checking to see if the post from
thepisu corrected everyone's issues with 2007 Help?

Well, looks like something weird happened to my previous post (look at my join date and the post date - the post was actually made this year).

My problem is also the Offline help which does not work, but shows the xml code. My registry key is set to xmlfile, but I still can only see the xml code when trying to open Offline Help from MS Office. My registry export looks like this:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml]
@="xmlfile"
"Content Type"="text/xml"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList\winword.exe]
@=""

Does anybody else have this problem? If Offline help works fine for you, can you please post your registry key here?

Note: My OS is Vista Home Premium SP 1 - would that explain some of the differences below?

If I export my xmlfile branch, it looks the same as the one from jcmaison, except for:
"FriendlyTypeName"="@C:\\Windows\\system32\\msxml3r.dll,-1"

My .xml branch looks completely different, I assume because I don't have some of the software like dreamweaver etc installed. I don't have any of the following branches in my registry under .xml:

• OpenWithProgIDs
• PersistentHandler

Does anybody know if I require them in Vista, if that could be the problem?

Thanks for the help, jc. I am however not sure how to set IE back to its default settings. In the Advanced Tab in Internet Options, I have clicked "Restore Advanced Settings" - not sure if that is enough? (This did not resolve the issue yet.)

Found the Reset as described (thanks, the instructions are good), did it, but it did not help. I also followed the steps from the microsoft web site, with no luck. Have not had the energy yet to uninstall and re-install Office again. I think by that time, I'd rather go all the way, re-format with XP instead of Vista, and try my chances there. That is however not going to happen soon - some time constraints here. I would also have liked if Microsoft cared enough to fix this.

When using online help it also works fine, but the problem is that the offline help does NOT work. I cannot (and frankly don't always want to) be online all the time. Microsoft put the option there for us to use offline help, except that it does not work for many people. Any help with this, or is this one of the issues that does not really bother Microsoft - therefore no support or help from their side? (I have not seen a proper response on this topic from Microsoft on ANY of the forums I've searched)

Unfortunately not. I don't hink that there is any intention from Microsoft's side to look at the issue either.

I installed Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise yesterday and have a problem
with the help files also. When I open Help in any of the Office
applications, a plain text XML (Version 1.0) files comes up. This file is
not searchable and not readable.

I upgraded Windows XP Media Center to Windows Vista Home Premium and
installed Office 2007 Enterprise after uninstalling Officer 2003 Enterprise.

In my system, the problem was that the XML files was changed
association.
So I opened the registry editor (Start > Run > regedit), then gone to
key "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml" and changed the (default) value to
"xmlfile"; this is the export of "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile":

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile]
@="XML Document"
"EditFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00
"FriendlyTypeName"="@C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\msxml3r.dll,-1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\BrowseInPlace]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\CLSID]
@="{48123BC4-99D9-11D1-A6B3-00C04FD91555}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell]
@="Open"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\edit]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\edit\command]
@="\"C:\\Programmi\\File comuni\\Microsoft Shared\\OFFICE12\
\MSOXMLED.EXE\" /verb edit \"%1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\open]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Programmi\\File comuni\\Microsoft Shared\\OFFICE12\
\MSOXMLED.EXE\" /verb open \"%1\""

I couldn't make sense of exactly what I should be changing in the
registry, so I did not change anything and therefore, I still have the same
problem. BTW, this problem is consistent on numerous Vista HP & Vista
Ultimate machines running in 32 & 64-bit.

I am pushing for my company to upgrade to Office 2007 and Sharepoint
services, but this is a definite "No-Go" for us. I would be glad to have you
Remote Assist (as you suggested in another post) if that will lead to an
official patch issued. This problem cannot be limited to myself as I have
installed Vista and Office 2007 on at least 5 different systems, all with the
same issue.

Another post suggested changing:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Microsoft>Office>12.0>Common>Internet>UseOnlineContent>Dword=1

When I set the value to:
0: The Help window show no online/offline status or options and Word Options
does not allow Online Content connection configuration.
1: Help does not try to connect online and the "Not connected..." info bar
does not come down, but the offline globe shows at the bottom right. When I
select to connect to the Internet either in the search box or the bottom
right, it fails and the registry value is automatically changed to 2.
2: Help tries to connect but fails and shows the "Not connected..." info bar
at the top and the offline globe at the bottom right. Nothing I have found
will change this.
3: Help shows the runonce original selection screen: "Get Help from Office
Online..." with two options "Show me content from Office Online when
connected to the Internet (recommended)" and "Only show offline help from
this computer". As always, choosing the first option results in failure and
a changed registry value back to 2.
4: same as 1

Another scenario is if I select Microsoft Office Online from the Help menu
in non-ribbon applications or from Word Options, a new tab in IE7 fails to
open displaying, for instance:

"Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet Site
http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlid...EC010231641033.

Operation aborted"

or

"Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet Site
http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlid...pp=winword.exe.

Operation aborted"

I don't know if this helps, but I would love to hear more suggestions.

Thanks for the detailed post, could you try adding
http://Office.Microsoft.com to your list of Trusted Sites and see if that
resolves the issue? If not, the next step would be for me to send you
instructions on how to download and run a tool called Fiddler to inspect your
client/server traffic.

I had the same symptoms (help viewer window opens and the TOC pane
populates, but the help content is blank). The other suggestions did not
work. I had just installed Visual C++ Express & .NET 3.5. I uninstalled
these and restored to an a checkpoint just before the install and that fixed
the problem.

Here is my *HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml*

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml]
@="xmlfile"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList\dreamweaver.exe]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList\SPDESIGN.EXE]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList\vsta.exe]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList\winword.exe]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithProgIDs]
"SharePointDesigner.xml.12.0"=""
"opendocument.CalcDocument.1"=""
"opendocument.WriterDocument.1"=""
"VSTA.xml.8.0"=""
"InfoPath.Document.2"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\PersistentHandler]
@="{7E9D8D44-6926-426F-AA2B-217A819A5CCE}"

But main changes to fix the problem were done on
*HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile*

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile]
@="XML Document"
"EditFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00
"FriendlyTypeName"=hex(2):40,00,25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,\

00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,\

32,00,5c,00,6d,00,73,00,78,00,6d,00,6c,00,33,00,72,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,\
00,2c,00,2d,00,31,00,00,00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\BrowseInPlace]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\CLSID]
@="{48123BC4-99D9-11D1-A6B3-00C04FD91555}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\DefaultIcon]
@="\"%1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell]
@="Open"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\edit]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\edit\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Fichiers communs\\Microsoft
Shared\\OFFICE12\\MSOXMLED.EXE\" /verb edit \"%1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\Open]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\Open\Command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Fichiers communs\\Microsoft
Shared\\OFFICE12\\MSOXMLED.EXE\" /verb open \"%1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\ShellEx]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\ShellEx\IconHandler]
@="{AB968F1E-E20B-403A-9EB8-72EB0EB6797E}"

NB: OS is Win XP SP3 FR

Below are my keys on a Vista Business SP1:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml]
@="xmlfile"
"Content Type"="text/xml"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList\vsta.exe]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithProgids]
"VSTA.xml.8.0"=""

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile]
@="XML Document"
"EditFlags"=hex:00,00,01,00
"FriendlyTypeName"="@C:\\Windows\\system32\\msxml3r.dll,-1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\BrowseInPlace]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\CLSID]
@="{48123BC4-99D9-11D1-A6B3-00C04FD91555}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\DefaultIcon]
@="C:\\Windows\\system32\\msxml3.dll,0"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\Open]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\Open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\IEXPLORE.EXE\" -nohome"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\Open\ddeexec]
@="\"file:%1\",,-1,,,,,"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\Open\ddeexec\application]
@="IExplore"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\xmlfile\shell\Open\ddeexec\topic]
@="WWW_OpenURL"

Please note that .xml key shows the applications registered to open a
file with the related extension. In this example vsta.exe is Microsoft
Visual Studio.The main point, as far as I understand, is that the
default behavior of the system to deal with a file which extension is
xml is to look at the xmlfile key.

The xmlfile key gives the name of the main parser to use: msxml3r with
various arguments. It looks in your case likethe parser is not doing its
job.

In your case, I would try to set back IE to its default settings,
because I guess that IE is used by CLVIEW (Office help viewer) to
display xml files. Then, if it doesn't work, I will uninstall office
2007, clean the registry with a registry cleaner, and then reinstall it.

I'm interesting to read the results of your future steps.

I'm using IE8. Below the "Restore Advanced Settings", I have another
button: "Reset" (Réinitialiser in French, I don't know the exact label
used in the original english IE interface). I was speaking about this
one.

Alternatively, I've seen that Microsoft have a fix IE special section
:'How to reset Internet Explorer settings'
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923737)

Having same problem as stated, no help files. Running Small Business 2007
with Vista Home Premium with all updates. Reluctant to go into registry -
perhaps Microsoft needs to publish a fix?

[codefox]

Not sure if this thread is dead or not, but I have had the same problem, and all my registry settings appear to be ok.

This is how I fixed the problem...
It appears that the help system needs template or support code from the internet that is not available on the local PC. I can create and repair this problem and prove this works:

1) Open Word 2007
2) Click the ? help icon in the top right corner - the Word Help box will open up, and display the raw XML in the right frame.
3) At the bottom of the help window is a button that says "Offline" - Click that button and select "Show Content from Office Online"
4) Assuming that you have an active internet connection, both the left and right frames will re-load and the help pages will display correctly.

that's what I meant ... offline help won't work unless you have online help disabled.

Please Note: I haven't tested this again since all those office2007 help file updates that have come thru in the last couple of weeks. The issue may have been resolved with those MS updates?

[whittye]

Has anyone managed to find a solution for this one? Neither my online or offline help are working for any office applications. I get the index displayed but that's all. When I click on an item in the index nothing happens. I'm running Office 2007 SP2 with Vista SP2. I'm not logged into http://office.microsoft.com either.

I have the same problem... can get online help but not local.. didnt mess
with registery but did try the other stuff and no help.. any futher ideas?

[Emp Wes]

No, I found no solution that worked. I am on the point of rather trying OpenOffice now.