Cannot install documentation for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

Question

The Install Documentation link is grayed out in first screen for installing Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta 2. In the last screen there is a button "Install Documentation". When I click it I get an error message about an unhandled exception by the Help Listener not finding the Help Listener and then about not finding helpcontentsetup.msha. A path to the install media is given, but a middle part of path is shown by .. There was enough to show that helpcontentsetup.msha was expected under setup, which is not where it was located. As a workaround I tried copying the whole ProductDocumentation tree to the setup folder, but that did not work either.

I am running Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 in a virtual machine under VMware Workstation.

Answer 1

Hi netwriter

Can you provide the exact error/exception message as is?

In case that Windows Installer may think it is already installed on the machine, you may try using Windows Installer CleanUp Utility http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301 to check if the document of VS2010 it there.
If it is there, please remove it and reinstall again.

Thanks.

Figo Fei

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Answer 2

The first error message is: "An unhandled Microsoft .NET Framework exception occurred in MSHelpListener.exe [772]." I did not get a subsequent error message like I did before, which I referred to in original posting: about not finding helpcontentsetup.msha. I believe the path to that file is not correct.

Should I be asking this question on a special forum for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2?

Thank you.

Answer 3

Hi netwriter

Did you get the error like "MsHelpListener not working"?

As far as I know, there is a known issue about MsHelpListener stop working: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=499078 with some workaround.

In case that you're not in this case, we may need to see what we can find in the event viewer to get more clues(run >'eventvwr').

Thanks.

Figo Fei

MSDN Subscriber Support in Forum

If you have any feedback on our support, please contact [e-mail]

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Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
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Answer 4

Yes, the listener not working was my problem. I was not able to use the command-line tool, though I downloaded the software. It was a tool for sp2 and I'm running sp3, so I don't know if that was an issue, or my user error. Anyway, I used regedit to edit the registry directly, setting the help listener to another port (I used 81) instead of 80. Then I brought up the Help Manager and followed instructions. Originally I mistakenly changed the location of the store (though I guess that would be OK, but no reason to do so). The help files then installed, and I could then access help from either VS or from the Start menu of XP.

Thank you.

(I am disappointed in the browser-based help instead of traditional help, where there is a nice treeview, index, sync contents, etc., and it is slower to navigate.)