KB205499 - You cannot view the Help topic when you click a Help topic from the Office Assistant

Article ID: 205499

Article Last Modified on 5/7/2007

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
Microsoft Access 2000 Standard Edition
Microsoft Word 2000 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q205499

For a Microsoft Office 97 version of this article, see 172562.

SYMPTOMS

When you click a Help topic from the Office Assistant, nothing happens and the Help topic is not displayed.

CAUSE

This problem occurs when the focus of an Office program is set to a drive that is no longer available. The following cases describe the most common situations where this can occur.

Case 1: Floppy Disk Drive

After you open or close a file on a floppy disk and then remove the disk from the drive.

-or-
After you access a floppy disk using the Open or Save As commands, click Cancel, and then remove the floppy disk from the drive.

Case 2: Network Drive

After you have disconnected from a network drive on which you have opened or closed a file.

-or-
After you have opened or closed a file on a network drive and the network drive is now unavailable because of a network outage or a momentary disruption.

WORKAROUND

To change the focus of the Office program to an available drive, click Open on the File menu, and then click Cancel.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

When you use the Open command and the Office program detects that the drive it has been working with is now unavailable, the Office program will change the focus back to the hard disk. After changing the focus of the Office program to an available drive, you can click a Help topic, and the Help topic will be displayed.

For additional information about related problems with Help, please click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

237355 OFF2000: Cannot Use Help or No Results Returned from Search

239913 OFF2000: Help Does Not Appear When Clicking Help Topic

Additional query words: OFF2000 help unavailable not there available no missing cannot access can't see

Keywords: kbpending KB205499