SQL 2005 Books online unable to display help items

Question

Just reinstalled SQL Server 2005 standard 64  bit on a Windows 7 64 bit computer.  I uninstalled and reinstalled SQL and all the tools in order to try to get it to access the Books Online.  In a bid to try to rectify the situation, I then downloaded and installed the latest 2005 Books Online, which seems to be November 2008.

When I try to access ANY help from the SQL Server 2005 Books Online (November 2008), I recieve an error indicating that "This program cannot display the webpage".

So for instance, when I want to lookup the "While" keyword, the BOL trys to display the following address:

ms-help://MS.SQLCC.v9/MS.SQLSVR.v9.en/tsqlref9/html/67c30b8d-3f15-41ad-b9a9-a4ced3b2af9f.htm

And it does not succeed.  It apparently cannot find the MS-Help addresses?  It also does not work if I copy and paste the address into Internet Explorer.

Is there some setting in internet explorer that may be preventing the display of the help items?  I am at a loss and do not know where to look to resolve this problem.

Your assistance is appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi Skillmaker,

I had something like that in the past that I got such an annoying message when I tried to view any help file. In my case it was an IE setting but I do not remember what I did to fix it.

You could check your zones - maybe your local system is no longer inside the local zone?

I found some interesting pages which you could check to see if anything in there is helpfull:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956196
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie8-windows_other/internet-explorer-cannot-display-the-webpage/c8a0b157-820a-4a14-80f3-806ab51717fa

I hope you can solve your issue that way.

With kind regards,

Konrad

Answer 2

I appreciate the suggestions.  After trying the majority of the items noted in the two articles, I am still not able to display the Books Online from within the SQL 2005 help screens, nor from internet explorer.

The response from IE diagnostics is to suggest that the spelling of the address may be correct.  Maybe.  But the address was copied over from the SQL help screen:

ms-help://MS.SQLCC.v9/MS.SQLSVR.v9.en/tsqlref9/html/67c30b8d-3f15-41ad-b9a9-a4ced3b2af9f.htm

So, no resolution or solution found yet.  Any other thoughts would be appreciated.

thanks!