Measurement Studio 7.0 Eval breaks Visual Studio 2003 Help

[AlexThalmann]

Downloaded and installed the lastest Measurement Studio evaluation (7.0 0.341). It has now subsequently managed to break the Visuall studio 2003 help system completely. I can't do indexes or searches for help, and the measurement studio specific help doesn't work either, which does not put me in a particularly good frame of mind.


Any suggestions?

[AlexThalmann]

Ok, my bad - only remembered now that I never restarted my machine after the install. Problem solved

[Colin hughes]

I have had the same problem with MS 7 and 7.1

The help is there but F1 when high lighting code.

The system tells me that the help is not installed, but will let me use the index.

Unsolved.

Colin

[drohacek]

We would like to figure out what is wrong so that we can fix it. Could you either describe this problem in more detail or contact customer support (http://www.ni.com/ask) to help us figure it out? For example:

You state that the help is there but F1 (doesn't work?) when high lighting code.

1. What do you mean by "there"? Do you mean that from within Visual Studio 2003 you can select Help>>Contents and see the NI Measurement Studio Help book?
2. Does F1 not work only for Measurement Studio content, or is F1 broken for Microsoft content as well?

You state that the system tells you that the help is not installed, but will let you use the index.

1. After performing what action(s) does the system notify you that the help is not installed? What is the exact error message?
2. Are you notified only that the Measurement Studio help is not installed or are you notified that the Microsoft help is not installed as well?
3. Does the table of contents work?
4. Does search work?

Additional information that might help us track this down:

1. Are you able to use the help through:
1. Start>>Programs>>Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003>>Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Documentation?
2. Start>>Programs>>Nataional Instruments>>Measurement Studio 7.1 for VS .NET 2003>>Measurement Studio Documentation?
2. Do you have the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK 1.1 installed?
3. Do you have all of Visual Studio 2003 installed, or just a particular language (e.g. C++)?
4. Do you have the English version of Visual Studio 2003?
5. What Visual Studio 2003 package do you have (Standard, Professional, Enterprise)?
6. Has the help ever worked for you, or did you start seeing this after a clean install?

[Colin hughes]

Hi

VS Pro MSDN version.

>>What do you mean by "there"?

The table of contents popout is pined to the side of the IDE, also the index popout.

>>Do you mean that from within Visual Studio 2003 you can select Help>>Contents and see the NI Measurement Studio Help book?

On selecting "Contents" or "Index" a pop up tell you that help is not installed.

"Help is not available for Visual Studio.net becourse the MSDN library which provides help for Visual Studio, is not installed".

On closing this pop-up the pop-out for the contents are dispayed as normal with the books for VS and NI.

Same thing for the Index, if the content or index is not poped out , when moving mouse over the help icon or index icon some times it displays the same message.

>>Does the table of contents work?

Only after the above message.

>>Does search work?

Same again but the seach box is displayed after the same message above, so yes it does work.

>>Start>>Programs>>Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003>>Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Documentation?

No broblem with the IDE open or closed.

>>Start>>Programs>>Nataional Instruments>>Measurement Studio 7.1 for VS .NET 2003>>Measurement Studio Documentation?

No broblem with the IDE open or closed.

>>Do you have all of Visual Studio 2003 installed,

The full MSDN version.

>>Do you have the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK 1.1 installed?

Yes.

>>Do you have the English version of Visual Studio 2003?

Yes.

>>What Visual Studio 2003 package do you have (Standard, Professional, Enterprise)?

MSDN Professional.

>>Has the help ever worked for you, or did you start seeing this after a clean install?

Worked OK with our MS.

I think I have stumbled on a posible course.

When first loading VS and a project, without doing any thing else I pressed FI and the the NI Measurment and Automation explorer help poped up in its own window.   Seems this could be the problem as this help should not be intergrated in MS.

If I select a tab in MS to show code or user form then press F1, I will get the error message.

I tried the same but this time using the menue for contents and the error message showed.

Seems the problem is with interferance from   NI Measurment and Automation explorer help system and the F1 key.

M&A version installed is 3.1.1.3003.

Thanks for your time

Colin 

[jlaney]

Hello,

This is the standard message you receive when you do not have MSDN installed into Visual Studio.  It will happen on a clean install of Visual Studio where you did not install MSDN when asked to install help ( I think it is step 3 of 4 for the Visual Studio 2003 installation).  It will continue to happen until you install MSDN into Visual Studio, because Visual Studio assumes you do not have any help if you don't have their help installed.  I have 3 other help plug-in installed into Visual Studio (including 1 from Microsoft) and I still get that message. 

I took screenshots off a test machine to show how this can happen.  In the zip file you will see the error message dialog.  The image title "without MSDN" is how you get the error message to show up every time you launch help.  The image title "with MSDN" is when I installed a minimal MSDN help install to make the dialog stop popping up.

A side effect of this is that F1 help does not work properly until you install at least the minimal install of MSDN help. This is a Microsoft issue that we have brought to their attention.

I hope this helps you solve you issue.  If this does not help please reply and include a screen shot you your help expanded so I can see what you do have installed inside the Visual Studio combined help collection.

Regards,

Jeff

[Colin hughes]

Hi

The full MSDN was installed as part of the VS instulation.

Both VS and NI help show up in the contents pop-out after the error message shows.

The Measurment Explorer help should not load when presing F1 when first opening VS.

Looking at the list of installed help files for VS (on the menue some where) it list both VS and NI help files installed. 

Colin

[jlaney]

Colin,

What I am asking is not if Visual Studio help is installed (that will always show up since Visual Studio installs that with itself).  I am asking if "MSDN Library" shows up in the help as shown in the screenshot.  This is what causes this error to stop showing up and F1 help to work properly.

There are a few places you can check to try and fix things if you do have stuff installed. 

1) Go to the Tools>>Options menu and select the Environment>>Help section.  Make sure your preferred Language is English and that Visual Studio.NET 2003 Combined Help Collection is selected, and that MSDN also shows up in the list.

2) Launch just the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Documentation from teh start menu.  There should be a link at the bottom of the open page that states "..., see Visual Studio .NET Combined Help Collection Manager"  Click on this and make sure you see both NI and MSDN in the list.  You may want to uncheck MSDN update and recheck it and update again to make sure Visual Studio is recognizing MSDN as installed.

Also, take a look at these Microsoft KB:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306873

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;840921

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;250334

Jeff

NI

[Colin hughes]

Hi Jeff

On closer inspection of the wording of my VS help files installed with contents, it turns out that the version installed is January 2003 (one month out of date).

Inspecting the MSDN Library disks that came with the VS version delivered with MSDN Pro I find that it is nealy the same as the retail version but not the same.

Disk 1

NO date on the disk as found on normal MSDN Library disk but the wording is.

MSDN Subscription Library.

Intergrates with Microsoft Visual studio .net Help.

But the help is one month out of date. (could be an older version that came with the beta version and shiped by mistake)

Uninstaling the MSDN and reinstalling using the MSDN Library from a retail pack fixed the problem.

I must have made a mistake thinking that it worked OK before installing MS.

The retail version does not have the word Subsciption on it.

NOTE this is a CD version of the disk so the DVD substription version might be OK but the computer I installed on has no DVD.

I normaly use a new computer for each new project so my licence agreement with Microsoft and Borland (licenced to user not machine) is OK.

NI  licence agreement is wrong for software developers so I hope we do not get any more activation software like LabWindows that came with MS. Unusable.

If MS goes that way it will be unusable.

Just a gripe of mine.

Thanks for your help in pointing me in the right direction to fix this problem.

Colin

Message Edited by Colin hughes on 07-19-2005 04:37 AM