OFF97: Office Assistant Doesn't Appear

In the programs listed at the beginning of this article, the following symptoms may occur:

• When you start an Office program, the Office Assistant does not appear.
  
  -and-
  
  
• When you click the Office Assistant on the Standard toolbar, the Office Assistant does not appear. Instead, the Help Topics dialog box appears.
  
  -or-
  
  
• When you click on the Office Assistant you will receive the error message: Cannot find Wdmain8.aw run setup.

These problems may occur if the registry key that contains the path to the Office Assistant actor files points to an incorrect or obsolete location. The registry key may contain an incorrect or obsolete path when the following conditions are true:

• You run Setup and click Run From CD to install Microsoft Office 97.
  
  -and-
  
  
• You remove Office 97 by running the Setup program in maintenance mode and clicking Remove All.
  
  -and-
  
  
• You perform a Typical or Custom installation of Office 97 to reinstall it.

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall Windows 95. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the Changing Keys And Values online Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe). Note that you should make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat) before you edit the registry.

To resolve this problem, use the following steps:

1. On the Start menu, click Run. In the Open box, type regedit and click OK.
2. In the Registry window, open the following key:
   

         HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Common\Assistant
   						

   
   If the key does not exist, please use the following before continuing to Step 3:
   
   
   • Right-mouse click the Common folder, point to New and click Key.
   • Name the new key Assistant.
3. In the Value pane, click AsstPath in the Name column.
4. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
5. In the Value Data box, type the correct path to the actor files on your hard disk. By default, this path is the following:
   

         C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Actors
   						

   
   NOTE: If this path is not valid, search for a folder on your hard disk that contains the file Clippit.act, and use this path.
6. Click OK.
7. On the Registry menu, click Exit.
8. Quit and restart any Microsoft Office 97 programs that are running.

If the Office Assistant does not appear automatically when you start one of the programs, click the Office Assistant on the Standard toolbar.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

In Office 97 programs, you can display the Office Assistant by:

• Clicking the Office Assistant tool on the Standard toolbar.
  
  -or-
• Pressing F1.

Although you can prevent the Office Assistant from appearing when you press F1 (by clearing the "Respond to F1 key" check box in the Office Assistant Options dialog box), clicking the Office Assistant on the Standard toolbar ALWAYS displays the Office Assistant. If you click the Office Assistant on the toolbar and the Office Assistant does not appear, your registry may contain an invalid value for the location of the actor files.

Invalid actor file locations that may be stored in your registry may include the following:

• The CD-ROM drive (for example, D:\Office\Actors).
  
  
• A network share that is no longer available (for example, \\<MyServer>\<Share>\Msoffice\Office\Actors).

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: