Windows 7: Windows Help Facility not working

Hi - I recently upgraded my HP laptop from 64 bit Vista home premium to 64 bit Windows 7 home premium. Everything seemed to be working just fine, until today when I went into the help facility.

Clicking on start - help and support gets the windows help and support window with the following text - Topic not found. The topic you are looking for is not available in this version of Windows. I haven't even typed anything in to the search window at this point. I have enclosed a snapshot of the windows help window.

Typing anything into the search window (ex: windows), results in o results for windows _elbasuer_ .

This is strange! My other two computers where I did a fresh install of Windows 7 Home Premium do not have this problem.

Any hints would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Dave

Hi Dave and welcome

Did you use the same image (dvd) for the clean installs and the upgrade?

What version of win 7 ? (7600?) 32 or 64 ?

Ken J+

Hi Ken - I used the same dvd (64 bit Windows Home Premium) for my laptop and one of the other installs and the 32 bit dvd for the other. I was using the Family Pack for upgrading three pc's. It is the version that was commercially released (7600?).

Thanks

Dave

I tried to find an answer for you and came up with this from Microsoft. Its for Vista, but we all have Vista under the hood.



"help and support" not working

I truly hope that this helps.

If it were me I would go with system restore or system image.

Can you also run sfc /scannow?

Hi tried the solution found by Richard and sfc /scannow - still no luck.

One further note - if I select the browse option within help it seems to work. So it is only the initial help page that is knackered.

I will keep searching!

Thanks

Dave

Have you tried to turn it off and then back on in Programs and Features?
Windows Search - Turn On or Off

Hi myzr7 - tried turning search off and on but it had no effect.

The problem isn't with search, but rather with the initial help page. The messed up initial help page is displayed prior to any search request.

I will call Microsoft support.

Thanks everyone

Dave

I am having the same problem , Please Help.


"The problem isn't with search, but rather with the initial help page. The messed up initial help page is displayed prior to any search request. "

Here is the solution, I found after long time research. It`s caused by bluetooth software. I had the same "elbauser" corrupted help file. After you do this you`ll have windows original offline help files. If you have bluetooth in your pc, this is pretty much %100 problem causing help files to be corrupted.

1. Click on Start, type regedit.exe in the Search field, and press Enter.
2. Provide consent to User Account Control if prompted.
3. In the left hand navigation pane, expand each registry key until you are at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Assistance\Client\1.0\Namespaces\OEM\en-US\Titles
4. Delete the "BCRM_Bluetooth_Help" string value (REG_SZ).
5. Close the Registry Editor and re-launch Windows Help and Support.