PRB: Help Error: Unable To Display the Find Tab (177)

• Microsoft Win32 Software Development Kit (SDK) for

      - Microsoft Windows NT version 3.51
      - Microsoft Windows 95 version 4.0
  

SYMPTOMS

In Winhlp32.exe, you may encounter the following error when you click the Find tab in the Help Topics dialog box:

   Unable to display the Find tab. (177)

CAUSE

The cause of this error depends on when it occurs. If it occurs immediately upon clicking the Find tab, the problem may be an old or corrupted .gid file. Normally, when help is started for the first time, it builds the Full Text Search database (.fts) and the index file (.gid). However, if a .gid file already exists in the current directory, help may become confused and display the error message when the Find tab is clicked.

If the error message occurs immediately after the word list has been built, the problem is most likely due to help attempting to index a help file that contains no keywords. This can happen if a helpfile is referenced by way of an Index command in a contents file (.cnt) and that helpfile has no K footnotes.

RESOLUTION

If the problem is due to a damaged or corrupted .gid file, delete the existing .gid and .fts files and re-launch the help file. Note that the .gid file is a hidden file that resides in the same directory as the help file.

If the problem is due to indexing a help file that contains no keywords, either remove the help file from the index entirely or use the Link command in the contents (.cnt) file to reference the help file. If you are unsure whether or not a help file has keywords in it, you can either search the .rtf files for K footnotes, or you can use the reporting mechanism in Help Workshop. To do the latter, click Report on the File menu, specify the help file to search, specify a file to output the results to, and choose K keywords for Display options. This gives you a list of all of the keywords in the specified helpfile.