Visual studio Help System stopped working. How can I fix it?

[A.Neves]

Hi,

My VS completly stopped working. I have VS2003 and recently I have benn
unintalling some programs and intalling others VS2005BetaXperience and
SQLServer2005 MSDN and my help system completly stopped working.

The message says that it is impossible to find the server or Internet
Explorer DNS error.

Some help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

[james]

Post by A.Neves
Hi,
My VS completly stopped working. I have VS2003 and recently I have benn
unintalling some programs and intalling others VS2005BetaXperience and
SQLServer2005 MSDN and my help system completly stopped working.
The message says that it is impossible to find the server or Internet
Explorer DNS error.
Some help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.
--
A.Neves

The easiest thing to do is to re-install VS2003. And probably the docs too. It sounds to me like you removed something that
VS2003 needs. So, re-install should fix it.
james

[A.Neves]

Hi,

Reinstall could solve the problem, but I that it may be something else that
a reinstall can't solve...

The last tthing I did was intalling MSDN library 4 VS2005... I think that
the application that interprets the help files is missing. The links can't be
resolved... How does the help system works? Does it it uses IIS?

Post by james

Post by A.Neves
Hi,
My VS completly stopped working. I have VS2003 and recently I have benn
unintalling some programs and intalling others VS2005BetaXperience and
SQLServer2005 MSDN and my help system completly stopped working.
The message says that it is impossible to find the server or Internet
Explorer DNS error.
Some help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.
--
A.Neves

The easiest thing to do is to re-install VS2003. And probably the docs too. It sounds to me like you removed something that
VS2003 needs. So, re-install should fix it.
james

[james]

Post by A.Neves
Hi,
Reinstall could solve the problem, but I that it may be something else that
a reinstall can't solve...
The last tthing I did was intalling MSDN library 4 VS2005... I think that
the application that interprets the help files is missing. The links can't be
resolved... How does the help system works? Does it it uses IIS?

I installed VS2005 Beta 2 and did not have the problems you are having. What may be the problem was during the install of MSDN
Library, you may have over-written the MSDN you had for VS2003.
That is why I suggested re-installing at least the previous version's ( VS2003) MSDN Library. ( unless of course you are a MSDN
Subscriber and then, just re-install your last distribution.)
During the install, it should detect VS2003 and ask if you want to associate it with VS2003. Selecting Yes, should fix it. I
had a similar problem with VS2005 Beta1 & VS2003. After uninstalling VS2005 Beta 1, some of the Help in VS2003 would not show
up when doing a Search in Help from VS2003 IDE.
I re-installed the version of MSDN that came with VS2003 ( Enterprise Architect) and everything went back to normal.
When I installed VS2005 Beta2, I made sure to pay attention to the install of the Doc's so that they were only associated with
VS2005 Beta 2 and not VS2003. So far, that has worked for me.
I don't think that IIS would be your problem in this case. I am not running it and I don't have the problem
(with Beta 2) that I had previously with Beta 1 & VS2003, when I uninstalled Beta1.
Hope you get your problem solved.
james