Knowledge Base

BUG: You receive a "Help is not available" message when you try to access the Help in Visual Studio .NET 2003

Article ID: 840921

Article Last Modified on 3/4/2006

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional Edition
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Developer
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Academic Edition

SYMPTOMS

When you access Help in the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 IDE, you receive the following message:

Help is not available for Visual Studio .NET because MSDN Library, which provides Help for Visual Studio, is not installed.
When MSDN is not installed, Help is not available from the index, search, table of contents, F1, or Help buttons in the user interface.

CAUSE

This problem occurs if one of the following conditions is true:

A version of the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) that was released before February 2003 is installed.
The MSDN for Visual Studio 2003 has not been installed completely.
A version of the MSDN that was released in April 2003 or later has not been installed completely.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, follow these steps:

Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Control Panel opens.
In Control Panel, double-click Add/Remove Programs. The Add/Remove Programs dialog box appears. The Add/Remove Programs dialog box contains the list of programs that are installed in your computer.
In the list of programs, click Microsoft Library for Visual Studio .NET 2003, and then click Remove to remove MSDN.
Install MSDN for Visual Studio .NET 2003 or a version of MSDN that was released in February 2003 or later.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Install a version of MSDN that was released before February 2003.
Install Visual Studio .NET 2003.
Start Visual Studio .NET 2003.
Perform any one of the following actions to access Help in the Visual Studio .NET 2003 IDE:
- Press the F1 key.
- On the Help menu, click Dynamic Help.
- On the Help menu, click Contents.
- On the Help menu, click Index.
- On the Help menu, click Search.

REFERENCES

For additional information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

822354 Visual Studio .NET 2003 Readme (Part 1)

822355 Visual Studio .NET 2003 Readme (Part 2)

Keywords: kbbug kbhelp kbide kbvs2005swept kbvs2005doesnotapply KB840921

Microsoft KB Archive/840921