BUG: Blank Window Appears Instead of Help File Contents

RESOLUTION

Workaround #1

To display the contents or index of your Help file with the ShowHelp method, first set the HelpCommand property of the Common Dialog control to the value &HB. This value corresponds to the HELP_FINDER constant 0x000b in WINUSER.H. When you use this constant, the Help window appears with the last active tab. For example, if the Index tab was selected when this window was last shown, then it will be the active tab when help is shown again:

      CommonDialog1.HelpFile = _
         "C:\Program Files\DevStudio\VB\Samples\Samples.hlp"
      CommonDialog1.HelpCommand = &HB
      CommonDialog1.ShowHelp
				

Workaround #2

To display the Index tab of your Help file, regardless of which tab was active when the Help file was last shown, set the HelpCommand property of the Common Dialog control to cdlHelpPartialKey:

      CommonDialog1.HelpFile = _
         "C:\Program Files\DevStudio\VB\Samples\Samples.hlp"
      CommonDialog1.HelpCommand = cdlHelpPartialKey
      CommonDialog1.ShowHelp