F1 Visual Studio Search 2019 Broken

Question

Hello,

  I recently updated to VS2019 Community and having some issues with help. When I select a javascript statement and press F1, it always results to: "We're no longer updating this content regularly. Check the Microsoft Product Lifecycle for information about how this product, service, technology, or API is supported."

So, I press F1 on and I get redirected from: https://msdn.microsoft.com/query/dev16.query?appId=Dev16IDEF1&l=EN-US&k=k(typescript);k(TargetFrameworkMoniker-.NETFramework,Version%3Dv4.5);k(DevLang-typescript)&rd=true

to: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/

I also have VS2012 Professional, and everything there works fine. It opens up the correct page:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/query/dev11.query?appId=Dev11IDEF1&l=EN-US&k=k(let_JavaScriptKeyword);k(TargetFrameworkMoniker-.NETFramework,Version%3Dv4.5);k(DevLang-jscript);k(DevLang-dhtml);k(DevLang-javascript)&rd=true

One other thing. The VS IDE sometimes opens the help page in the IDE and sometimes it opens it up on EDGE. How can I force it to always open the help page in the VS IDE.

Thank you

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Answer 1

Hi TimidWriter,

Welcome to the MSDN forum.

According to your first problem, l have reproduce it in my side. It actually does exist. So l report this issue to the VS product team so that you can keep an eye on the progress of this situation:

https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/690515/f1-visual-studio-search-2019-broken.html

If you have any information to supplement, you  can add a comment 

##One other thing. The VS IDE sometimes opens the help page in the IDE and sometimes it opens it up on EDGE. How can I force it to always open the help page in the VS IDE.

>>>You can follow my steps to get your effect.

open VS-> menu Help-->Set Help Reference --> choose Launch in Help Viewer

Then you can always open the help page in VS IDE.

Best Regards,

Perry

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Answer 2

open VS-> menu Help-->Set Help Reference --> choose Launch in Help Viewer

Thank you. Worked in 2012 but it does not seem to be available in 2019 Community. I guess I need professional for that feature.

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Answer 3

F1 is completely, totally broken for me and my co-workers. The Ctrl-Alt-F1 is not listed on the Help menu, nor is the "Set Help Preference" menu option -- they are missing.

I am desperate for a solution. For all of us, anywhere we hit F1, it goes to a docs.microsoft.com link that apparently doesn't exist, and eventually times out.

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TElf

Answer 4

Actually I was able to fix F1 help just now. The "Help Viewer" somehow got disabled in the Setup/Modify. Clicked it on/enabled, then ran Modify to upgrade the install, and suddenly it became available once again. No idea how it got disabled - it used to work, then several weeks (or months) ago it stopped working. I was doing regular updates of VS 2019 as they came out, so maybe it was an updated that killed it.

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TElf