Cannot open Help and Support in XP

[Tony R]

Apologies to you all but I have posted this question twice before and still
have no idea how to correct it - it seems it should be easy to fix.
If I click Start and then Help an Support, the mouse pinter briefly becomes
an hourglas and then nothing happens. Task Manager says there is nothing
running. Other MS software does not display Help either e.g. Office 2000
excel, Word etc. Other programs with Help files that are not on my hard drive
or are not links out to the internet generate error messages such as the
installation is corrupt or cannot find Help file. After adding a registry
entry that I was told about on this newsgroup, the o/s now gives Cannot find
HelpCtr.exe. The file is there and is the ame version as the o/s and is
approx 750KB in size. I have cleaned the registry with a highly recommended
registry cleaner but still no change. I added a new user with full rights on
the PC but no change there either. I would like to replace HelpCtr.exe but my
PC only has a Certificate of Authenticity stuck to it - I have no CDs. Can
someone tell me how to fix this problem or else how to get a HelpCtr.exe or
CAB file that will allow me to try to replace the present file? Any help
would be appreciated.
Thank you
Tony

 

[Elmo]

Apologies to you all but I have posted this question twice before and still
have no idea how to correct it - it seems it should be easy to fix.
If I click Start and then Help an Support, the mouse pinter briefly becomes
an hourglass and then nothing happens. Task Manager says there is nothing
running. Other MS software does not display Help either e.g. Office 2000
excel, Word etc. Other programs with Help files that are not on my hard drive
or are not links out to the internet generate error messages such as the
installation is corrupt or cannot find Help file. After adding a registry
entry that I was told about on this newsgroup, the o/s now gives "Cannot find
HelpCtr.exe". The file is there and is the same version as the o/s and is
approx 750KB in size. I have cleaned the registry with a highly recommended
registry cleaner but still no change. I added a new user with full rights on
the PC but no change there either. I would like to replace HelpCtr.exe but my
PC only has a Certificate of Authenticity stuck to it - I have no CDs. Can
someone tell me how to fix this problem or else how to get a HelpCtr.exe or
CAB file that will allow me to try to replace the present file? Any help
would be appreciated.
Thank you
Tony

You stated: "The file is there and is the same version as the o/s and
is approx 750KB in size".

The file is where? Mine is in the folder
C:\WINDOWS\pchealth\helpctr\binaries and is also compressed in the
folder C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache

If you run SFC, it should replace the file, if damaged, with the version
in the dllcache subfolder. You might try running SFC just in case other
files, associated with that process, are damaged.

Click Start, Run, type SFC /SCANNOW, click OK. If any files are damaged
or missing, they'll be replaced. You may need to reboot afterwards so
damaged files will be replaced.

There are more helpful suggestion on Help Center here:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
Line 141. Help, CHM, HH Checker/Fixer
Line 235. Restore Help and Support Service
Line 376. (r-h column) Reset Default Settings of HTML Help Control

...and here. There are many on this page:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_h.htm

 

[Tony R]

Thanks for the post Elmo. I ran the MJ disgnostic which seems like a neat
little tool but I must run it on another XP machine to see if the results are
comparable. I was unable to tell if the features it could not find should be
on my PC or not. E.G. HH Workshop not found, File not found C:\Program
Files\itcc.dll and also hha.dll. I don't seem to have HelpCtr.dll if that is
the correct name of the .dll file I should be looking for. I tried running
the SFC /SCANNOW from the Run command but it prompted me for CDs and I never
got CDs with this PC. Is there anywhere I can get the necessary files legally
- yhe PC does have a Certificate of Authenticity stuck to it and the little
app the MS runs on your machine to valdate your XP install comes back saying
I have a legit copy of XP.
Thanks for your tips but I'm still not there yet!!
Tony

 

[Elmo]

Thanks for the post Elmo. I ran the MJ diagnostic which seems like a neat
little tool but I must run it on another XP machine to see if the results are
comparable. I was unable to tell if the features it could not find should be
on my PC or not. E.G. HH Workshop not found, File not found C:\Program
Files\itcc.dll and also hha.dll. I don't seem to have HelpCtr.dll if that is
the correct name of the .dll file I should be looking for. I tried running
the SFC /SCANNOW from the Run command but it prompted me for CDs and I never
got CDs with this PC. Is there anywhere I can get the necessary files legally?

OEM installs, which store the install information on a hidden partition,
usually store the Windows files in the C:\i386 folder. You can change
where XP expects to find the XP CD by editing the
registry to read:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \Windows NT \CurrentVersion]
Sourcepath=C:\I386

The PC does have a Certificate of Authenticity stuck to it and the little
app the MS runs on your machine to validate your XP install comes back saying
I have a legit copy of XP.
Thanks for your tips but I'm still not there yet!!
Tony

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \Windows\CurrentVersion \Setup]
Sourcepath=C:\