PRB: Visual Studio Error "Attempting to use invalid help file"

ID: Q248087

The information in this article applies to:

MSDN Library
Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0

SYMPTOMS

When accessing Help in any Visual Studio 6.0 product, the following message appears:

Attempting to use an invalid help file.

When starting the MSDN Library from the Start menu, the following message appears:

Cannot open the file 'MSDN*.COL'

Where '*' correlates to the version of the MSDN Library. For example, the file would be MSDNVS6A.col for the MSDN Library that shipped with Visual Studio 6.0.

CAUSE

The file HHCOLREG.dat is either missing, corrupted, or contains outdated information. HHCOLREG.dat is located in the %WINDIR%\Help folder. By default this is C:\Windows\Help on Windows 95/98 and C:\WINNT\Help on Windows NT. On Windows 2000 there may also be an HHCOLREG.dat file in each user's profile directory.

RESOLUTION

First, verify that you can view hidden files:

Open Windows Explorer.

From the View menu, choose Folder Options. For Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer 5.0, Folder Options is listed on the Tools menu.

Select the View tab in the Folder Options dialog box.

Select the Show hidden files and folders option.

Next, rename the file HHCOLREG.dat to HHCOLREG.old and reinstall the MSDN Library. If this does not resolve the issue, a manual uninstall of the MSDN library will be necessary. For more information on how to manually uninstall the MSDN Library, see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q240350 HOWTO: Manually Uninstall the MSDN Library

REFERENCES

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q216109 HOWTO: Troubleshooting MSDN Library Run-Time/Install/Uninstall Problems

Q240350 HOWTO: Manually Uninstall the MSDN Library

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbHTMLHelp kbMSDN kbVS600 kbDSupport
Version : WINDOWS:6.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb