Broken Help & Support (XP Home 5.1.2600 SP1)

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XP Home Help and Support refuses to play. Machine is a new ACER Aspire 2000 (1.6 GHz Centrino, 512KB, 60 GB Ultra ATA 100). After no initial problems, the Help & Support link on the Start Menu now refuses to work. Have fully updated and patched WinXP Home, AVG AV, Zone Alarm firewall, no bots or trojans etc. Registry Mechanic, Registry First Aid, System Mechanic and several other diagnostic tools show absolutely nothing wrong. Seems simple, but the answer has so far escaped me. Can anyone help?

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Try:

Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type services.msc /s, and then click OK.
Double-click Help and Support.
For Startup type, click Automatic, and then click OK.

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Thanks for the quick response; however no change. Any further ideas?

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Thanks for the quick response; however no change. Any further ideas?

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Jean,
Try this link.

HELP SUPPORT

This was a suggestion of HansV in a former thread and it worked .

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Thanks very much for the suggestion. Downloaded and executed the file, and was very encouraged to find that it described the symptoms exactly. However, it also told me that all the registry entries were correct, and that it couldn’t help me.

Any further ideas?

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Thanks very much for the suggestion. Downloaded and executed the file, and was very encouraged to find that it described the symptoms exactly. However, it also told me that all the registry entries were correct, and that it couldn’t help me.

Any further ideas?

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Jean,
Try this link.

HELP SUPPORT

This was a suggestion of HansV in a former thread and it worked .

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Many components of Windows rely on Internet Explorer. Recent patches to Internet Explorer may have disabled some functionality of “local” files to get around some vulnerabilities. It may take a few days, but I suspect that Microsoft or the major PC vendors will start to post workarounds for this and other things that got broken by changes to IE. Or I’ll be shown to be completely out to lunch.

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Many thanks for your words of encouragement…… I’ll keep trying!

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My Dad’s XP Pro machine had problems opening Help (as well as a number of other IE related problems). I checked the Event Log and identified the component that was failing. A quick search on Google identified this as a common fault. It turned out that some software he’d installed had started the Speech Recognition Language component. Since the component had been started but not configured it was failing when called.
Using Control Panel > Regional and Language Settings > Language > Advanced allowed me to remove the components and all was sorted.

In your case, the problem may not be the same, but the lesson is to use the system event viewer to identify which component is failing and follow it up on Google.

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My Dad’s XP Pro machine had problems opening Help (as well as a number of other IE related problems). I checked the Event Log and identified the component that was failing. A quick search on Google identified this as a common fault. It turned out that some software he’d installed had started the Speech Recognition Language component. Since the component had been started but not configured it was failing when called.
Using Control Panel > Regional and Language Settings > Language > Advanced allowed me to remove the components and all was sorted.

In your case, the problem may not be the same, but the lesson is to use the system event viewer to identify which component is failing and follow it up on Google.

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Many thanks for your words of encouragement…… I’ll keep trying!

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Many components of Windows rely on Internet Explorer. Recent patches to Internet Explorer may have disabled some functionality of “local” files to get around some vulnerabilities. It may take a few days, but I suspect that Microsoft or the major PC vendors will start to post workarounds for this and other things that got broken by changes to IE. Or I’ll be shown to be completely out to lunch.

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Jean

My XP Pro box at work seems to have a similar problem. The Help and Support screen opens up completely blank and hangs. I’ve checked Leif’s Services suggestion, run Doug Knox’s program (which says the registry entries are fine), and looked in the Event Logs, all with no positive result.

Still, that’s Help and Support for you!

John

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John,

Have you checked out the Help and Support section here?

Joe

--Joe

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Joe

Not yet – but I will tomorrow on the offending PC! What a fascinating collection of problems…

John

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Joe

Not yet – but I will tomorrow on the offending PC! What a fascinating collection of problems…

John

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Joe

Sadly I went though the list of likely solutions, but it still hangs when opening the Help & Support window. Maybe it will be fixed by SP2?!

John

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John,

That is a possibility. Can you try SP-2 on your own or is there an IT deptartment that controls that sort of thing?

Joe

--Joe

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Joe

Yes, it’s me – I downloaded the 272 MB network version just over a week ago!

John

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John,

I’d say make a backup and go for it.

Joe

--Joe

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John,

I’d say make a backup and go for it.

Joe

--Joe

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Joe

Yes, it’s me – I downloaded the 272 MB network version just over a week ago!

John

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John,

That is a possibility. Can you try SP-2 on your own or is there an IT deptartment that controls that sort of thing?

Joe

--Joe

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Joe

Sadly I went though the list of likely solutions, but it still hangs when opening the Help & Support window. Maybe it will be fixed by SP2?!

John

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John,

Have you checked out the Help and Support section here?

Joe

--Joe

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Jean

My XP Pro box at work seems to have a similar problem. The Help and Support screen opens up completely blank and hangs. I’ve checked Leif’s Services suggestion, run Doug Knox’s program (which says the registry entries are fine), and looked in the Event Logs, all with no positive result.

Still, that’s Help and Support for you!

John

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