I use Excel 2003 on Vista.
A couple of days ago, I was getting this response to many helps such as
F1; Search VLOOKUP; Click VLOOKUP.
The problem went when I rebooted and tried again.
I am hit again by this problem.
I googled without finding anything.
The problem seems to be with access to "local" help; Internet help is
still found.
Again, a reboot cured the immediate problem.
I googled again and got 2 hits. Neither went anywhere effective.
I would appreciate an explanation and a less destructive fix.
Thanks!
--
Walter Briscoe

Some versions of Excel allow you to enable/disable the Online Help feature:

Tools > Options > General Options > Service options > clear the show content
and links from Microsoft Office Online

--
Gary''s Student - gsnu201003


"Walter Briscoe" wrote:

> I use Excel 2003 on Vista.
> A couple of days ago, I was getting this response to many helps such as
> F1; Search VLOOKUP; Click VLOOKUP.
> The problem went when I rebooted and tried again.
> I am hit again by this problem.
> I googled without finding anything.
> The problem seems to be with access to "local" help; Internet help is
> still found.
> Again, a reboot cured the immediate problem.
> I googled again and got 2 hits. Neither went anywhere effective.
> I would appreciate an explanation and a less destructive fix.
> Thanks!
> --
> Walter Briscoe
> .
>

Because its web based, sometimes online help is not available.

If this is hte situation, you can always direct your computer to use local
help with the proper setting in Tools > Options... > General > Service Options
--
Gary''s Student - gsnu201003


"Walter Briscoe" wrote:

> I use Excel 2003 on Vista.
> A couple of days ago, I was getting this response to many helps such as
> F1; Search VLOOKUP; Click VLOOKUP.
> The problem went when I rebooted and tried again.
> I am hit again by this problem.
> I googled without finding anything.
> The problem seems to be with access to "local" help; Internet help is
> still found.
> Again, a reboot cured the immediate problem.
> I googled again and got 2 hits. Neither went anywhere effective.
> I would appreciate an explanation and a less destructive fix.
> Thanks!
> --
> Walter Briscoe
> .
>

In message <751D2CA0-3860-4659-B0C2-(E-Mail Removed)> of Sun,
16 May 2010 04:13:00 in microsoft.public.excel.newusers, Gary''s Student
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Some versions of Excel allow you to enable/disable the Online Help feature:
>
>Tools > Options > General Options > Service options > clear the show content
>and links from Microsoft Office Online
>

In message <DA624971-07E5-43BC-9569-(E-Mail Removed)> of Sun,
16 May 2010 07:10:01 in microsoft.public.excel.newusers, Gary''s Student
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Because its web based, sometimes online help is not available.
>
>If this is hte situation, you can always direct your computer to use local
>help with the proper setting in Tools > Options... > General > Service Options

Thanks to Gary''s Student for both replies.

I disabled my internet connection to see if I could repeat the problem.
I could not. Perhaps recent pages are cached. I had tried vlookup again.
OTOH, Search was done in Offline Help - not Microsoft Office Online.
I now have tools to probe failures and some understanding.

Unchecking "Tools/Options.../General/Service Options.../Online
Content/Show content and links from Microsoft Office Online" was
effective. Rechecking it did not restore the original states of the
dependent checkboxes. I checked "Search online content when connected"
and "Show Microsoft Office Online featured links" and left unchecked
"Show Template Help automatically when available".
--
Walter Briscoe