Visual Studio 2012 HelpViewer 2.0 still broken: location specified installing content invalid

Question

Using HelpViewer local or try to Add or Remove Content from the VS2012 Help Menu always results in message:

The location you specified for installing Help content is invalid, or you do not have permission to access it.

I get the error using using VS2012 Update 3 as an admin, or using command line HelpViewer as admin.

So I think this is a 'specified location invalid' not a permissions problem. I check the registry, and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0 AppRoot is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Help Viewer\v2.0\

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs ContentStore is C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2\Catalogs\

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs\VisualStudio11\en-US catalogName is Visual Studio 2012 Documentation

And the MSHC and METADAT files are installed at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2\Catalogs\VisualStudio11\ContentStore\en-US

There is a discrepancy: what is the CatalogName? is it "VisualStudio11" or is it "Visual Studio 2012 Documentation"?

I even tried to repair VS to fix. First I used Control Panel Programs to remove HelpViewer 2.0. then I repaired VS 2012. The removal removed the HelpViewer app and files, and the repair restored them. I don't recall and did not note (my bad) changes to registry. But same ugly issue.

There are few related posts on the Internet, but I cannot find complete definitive information about the registry settings in relation to content and exe location

Answer 1

I finally found the registry documentation for Help Viewer 2.0 at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh500508.aspx

I solved the problem by Editing:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs\VisualStudio11, setting the Key, LoactionPath, to the Value, C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2\Catalogs\VisualStudio11

Note that the .mshc, .mshi, .metadata files are located at: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2\Catalogs\VisualStudio11\ContentStore\en-US

Answer 2

This issue might prevail even if you update registry keys, add CatalogType.xml, etc. I solved this as below.

The shortcut for Microsoft Help Viewer was pointing to

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Help Viewer\v2.0\HlpViewer.exe" /catalogName VisualStudio11 /helpQuery method=f1&query=msdnstart /launchingApp Microsoft,VisualStudio,11.0 /sku 3000

Note the version 2.0 and /catalogName VisualStudio11. This was the problem. I corrected the version to 2.1 and /catalogName to VisualStudio12 and updated the shortcut. Things started working.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Help Viewer\v2.1\HlpViewer.exe" /catalogName VisualStudio12 /helpQuery method=f1&query=msdnstart /launchingApp Microsoft,VisualStudio,11.0 /sku 3000

Helpviewer needs some command line parameters to start and incorrect parameters caused this issue.

Answer 3

In my case, I'm using Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition on Windows 7 and I have the same challenges when I configured my LocationPath previously to external drive and deleted it because I wanted to relocate it to C drive then, I got the same error messages; but I got the idea from here where it's located in Registry, so what I did is ... I remove this key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.3

re-install the Help Viewer from Visual Studio Installer and it works; now i have to download everything again from the Web through Help Viewer as I wanted newer and updated version.

I wish this solution could also help someone looking for answers to the same challenges. Good LUCK! ^_^

Answer 4

In my case the problem (The location you specified for installing Help content is invalid, or you do not have permission to access it.) was that I at some point renamed the folder where Help content was located: (external disk) I:\10 INSTALL PROGRAMI\Visual Studio\Help Content = current path I:\10 INSTALL PROGRAMI**MS** Visual Studio\Help Content = original path.

So, after renaming ... \MS Visual Studio... into ...\Visual Studio..., the path was broken. As per above answer (from 'subsci' user, thank you), I modified the path in Registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1\Catalogs\VisualStudio12 -> LocationPath, and this solved the problem.

Answer 5

In my case (VS2019 16.11.9) on my workstation I found that
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.3\Catalogs\VisualStudio15 only had a key "VendorContent"=dword:00000001

I checked with my laptop (VS2019 help was working), and export the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.3\Catalogs\VisualStudio15 branch, and imported the reg file on my workstation - problem solved.

This is the content of the exported reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.3\Catalogs\VisualStudio15] "LocationPath"="%ProgramData%\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2\Catalogs\VisualStudio15\" "LastUpdated"="01/25/2022 20:01:00" "VendorContent"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.3\Catalogs\VisualStudio15\en-US] "SeedFilePath"="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Help Viewer\v2.3\CatalogInfo\VS11_en-us.cab" "catalogName"="Visual Studio Documentation"

Answer 6

In my case (VS2019 Community Edition on Win10), the folder %ProgramData%\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2\Catalogs\VisualStudio15 was missing!

I created the folder but it still didn't work (complained that "A content file required by the Help Viewer is missing or has been corrupted"). I had to copy file "CatalogType.xml" from another version of VS i had on my PC to work. The contents of that file are the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><catalogType>UserManaged</catalogType>

Then Help Viewer 2.3 was opened and it just needed me to select the content to download.