Microsoft KB Archive/240307

= BUG: Unable to Change Preferred Help Collection on Windows 2000 =

Article ID: 240307

Article Last Modified on 2/12/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * MSDN 2003 Universal Edition
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition

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This article was previously published under Q240307



SYMPTOMS
Attempting to change the preferred Help collection for Visual Studio may fail on Windows 2000. When you start the MSDN Library Collection Settings tool introduced by MSDN July 1999, the following error appears:

MSDN Library Collection Settings: There are no MSDN collections installed on this computer.

When you try to change the collection through the Visual C++ integrated development environment, no error message will appear but the setting does not change.



CAUSE
This problem occurs when the user attempting to change the collection settings is a member of the Users group on the computer running Windows 2000. Users don't have the permissions necessary to change the registry setting that determines the preferred collection.



RESOLUTION
An Administrator or power user needs to log on and change the collection settings.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.



MORE INFORMATION
When more than one version of the MSDN Library is installed on a computer, you can change the preferred collection used by Visual Studio. This determines which Library is displayed when you access Help from Visual Studio applications.

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

 * 1) Log on to a Windows 2000 computer as an administrator.
 * 2) Install Visual Studio 6.0. Select Visual C++ as one of the products to install.
 * 3) Install two versions of the MSDN Library. For example, install April 1999 and July 1999.
 * 4) Log off of the computer, and then log on as a user who is a member of the Users group.
 * 5) Start Visual C++.
 * 6) From the Tools menu, click Options.
 * 7) On the Help System tab, change the Preferred Collection. Click OK.
 * 8) Return to the Options dialog box and note that the Help System tab does not reflect the change made in the previous step.
 * 9) Quit Visual C++.
 * 10) On the Start menu, point to Programs, and then point to Microsoft Developer Network.
 * 11) Click MSDN Library - Collection Settings. The error message described above appears.

