Installing newer MSDN library causes Visual FoxPro Help to malfunction

After installing the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Library October 98 edition or later, Visual FoxPro 6.0 Help does not function correctly. Specifically, the Help menu Content and Index selections no longer display the Help viewer. Context-sensitive Help, normally accessed by pressing the F1 key within Visual FoxPro, also fails to display the Help viewer.

Visual FoxPro 6.0 contains hard-coded information for the Help file names.

As a workaround, make copies of the following two files in the \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\MSDN98\98OCT\1033\ folder, and place them in the same folder with the new names (MSDNVS98.CHW and MSDNVS98.COL):

Note The \98OCT folder name will be different if a later version of the MSDN Library is being installed.

Select MSDNVS98.COL in the 98OCT\1033 directory as the Help File in the File Locations tab of the Options dialog box to allow access to the full MSDN Help collection. The Options dialog box is located under the Tools menu. Be sure to select the Set As Default button within the Options dialog box after making this change to ensure the change is saved.

This workaround allows all aspects of Help to function correctly in Visual FoxPro 6.0, and does not adversely affect MSDN functionality or Help functionality in other Visual Studio applications.

Note The directory names above can be used if you accepted the default installation directory when you installed the MSDN Library October 98. Your MSDN directory name may be different if you selected a different installation directory name or installed a version of the MSDN Library later than October 98. Please modify the steps to match your MSDN directory if your particular directory structure differs from the above directory path.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in Visual FoxPro.

This bug was corrected in Visual Studio 6.0 Service Pack 3.

For additional information about Visual Studio service packs, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Install Visual FoxPro 6.0.
2. Install the MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0 edition. Be sure to do a Custom install and select the Visual FoxPro Documentation checkbox in the Options list.
3. Uninstall the MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0 edition.
4. Install the MSDN Library October 1998 edition. Again, be sure to do a Custom install and select the Visual FoxPro Documentation checkbox in the Options list.
5. Select Help/Index from the menu within Visual FoxPro 6.0.

When the above steps are followed, the Help viewer is not displayed and no error is generated.

When the workaround is implemented, the full MSDN collection is displayed in the Help viewer. Visual FoxPro 6.0 also allows you to limit the Help content to the Visual FoxPro Help file only. This is done by selecting the following file as the Help File in the File Locations tab of the Options dialog:

The install directory varies for different versions of the MSDN Library. For the October 98 version, for instance, it will be 98oct. Making copies of the COL and CHW files as listed in the RESOLUTION section also allows Help to function correctly if FOXHELP.CHM is selected as the Help file.

(c) Microsoft Corporation 1999, All Rights Reserved. Contributions by Jim Saunders, Microsoft Corporation.