Office 2007 online help not working

I recently started using Office 2007 on my HP laptop running with Windows Vista RTM. As the Office suite is new whenever I come across any problem I use its own Offline and Online Help. Now on my PC Offline help works fine but when I try to go with Online Help, it gives me the following error message:

“This page is unavailable. The page you are looking for is unavailable. Try the following:
Click Refresh on the toolbar
Click Back on the toolbar, and then click the link to the page again
Show offline content from this computer.”

Earlier I was facing the same problem with Vista Online help but after searching lot finally I found a Patch that fixed the problem. Is there any such patch for Office as well?

To me most probably it sounds a Firewall problem. If your Windows Firewall or any Third party firewall is on, just check it again and make sure that Office Help engine is allowed through it to connect web. If you start Word 2007 help set to Off line mode (lower right corner of the help page frame) and do a search and then switch to online help mode, does the search result work? Until, then if there is third party firewall on your PC, try turning it off because it may be the one blocking the connection.

I appreciate your help Bauer but I don’t think it could be the Firewall problem because If Office would have been blocked I should not receive and send emails in Outlook, right? Also I’m using Microsoft’s own OneCare service. So I don’t think it could be blocking Office. Secondly meanwhile I also tried running CLVIEW.EXE and it says:

“Invalid command line arguments: host application name or namespace not defined.” Thanks again for your helps.

Hi, This is JohnBes from Microsoft. Thanks for reporting this issue, and we’re sorry you’re experiencing difficulty connecting to our online services . We believe the problem is related to an expired cookie from a Windows Live login, and we are actively in the process of researching this issue and will prop a server side update as soon as possible.

As a workaround in the meantime, you can try the following and let me know if it solves the connectivity issue.
1. Go to Office.Microsoft.com and determine if you are currently logged on to Windows Live. (You can verify a current login by looking at the top right of the Office Online home page. If the string “Sign Out” appears then you are logged in.)
2. If logged in, simply click on “Sign Out”.
3. Restart your Office 2007 apps and see if your Help connectivity is restored.

If you are not logged on or if this step does not work, try deleting your cookies.
1. Bring up IE, Click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options.
2. On the General tab, under Browsing history, click Delete…
3. Then click Delete Cookies
4. Restart your Office 2007 applications and try Online Help again.
5. If necessary, you may have to restart your computer.

Glad to hear it Zack. I'm curious, were you able to determine if you were logged into Window Live when reproducing the problem?

Thanks,
John

I have exactly the same problem - worked fine from installation but then around Aug Sept it stoped working with the identical error message that others have had. I too tried all the things you suggested JOHNBES but it did not work.
Could it have something to do with the security upgrade preventing Office Help accessing the Internet? A solution to this problem would really help.

Regards Jim

Is this issue still open?

I too am having the same basic issue. That is, CLVIEW.EXE will not connect to any actual help files in any Microsoft application, including all Office 2007 programs and Web Expressions 2.

When I open help, the CLVIEW.EXE program opens the help window, but I can not get to any actual help files. Entering a keyword in the search field does absolutely nothing. Trying to pick an item from the Table of Contents also fails.

I've done just about everything discussed so far like making sure CLVIEW.EXE is approved by the firewall (even tried turning the firewall off).

I've uninstalled/reinstalled MS Office. I've used the windows add/remove (change) program to try the repair. Nothing works.

This problem popped up once a few months ago when I installed Vista SP2. My only "fix" back then was to completely rebuild the OS and reformat the hard disk.

Oddly enough, I just reinstalled Vista SP2 again the other day when this same problem reappeared. I might try uninstalling Vista SP2 to see if that helps.

Has anyone come up with a definitive solution to this issue? Living without help files is a real drag.

I can't get my help working correctly. When I changed the drop-down list to "Offline help", I finally get an initial dialog box, but when I click on one of the links in the message, it does nothing. Does anyone know why?

When I select "online help", nothing comes up. I tried allowing the clview in my firewall, but nothing doing.

Try adding office.microsoft.com and config.office.microsoft.com to your list of trusted sites.