Breaking new ground are we, Frank?! I’ve never heard of this one before either. You didn’t change ISPs, did you? Like going to AOL, CompuServe, or Yahoo? All three of those (and there might be others) have customized versions of Internet Explorer that will not access the HTML Help files.
You might also go in to Control Panel>Internet Options>Web and make sure that IE is still set as your default web browser. I don’t know why that might have been knocked off, but it’s worth a minute to look.
This happened to me often on an iBook and a Mac G4. I just re-installed the software and all was fine – till the next time!! It doesn’t happen with Elements 2.
Joy
Hi Beth,
Thanks for responding to my question. No I have not changed ISP’s,and I could not find anything in iternet options that mentions anything about which browser is my default. I am still using IE.
Thanks, Frank
If you couldn’t find anything in Internet Options, this is not promising. Try this path:
Control Panel>Network & Internet Options>Pick a Control Panel (I had to scroll to the bottom of the window so this would show)>Internet Options>Internet Properties>pick Program tab. Toward the bottom of the Program screen there’s a box that says something like "check to make sure Internet Explorer is default browser". Did you find anything like that?
By the way, Joy (post #2) either got lucky or forgot to say she also did a separate Find and manually removed the Elements Preference folder. Sometimes uninstalling and reinstalling doesn’t correct a problem unless you get that folder off in addition to what Windows removes through its Uninstall process.
You might also try deleting the Preference folder. To do that, have Elements closed, then click on the start up icon and immediately make a quick grab for the Control, Alt, and Shift keys. Hold all three down until you get a screen asking if you want to delete Settings. Say Yes.
Another thing you could do is create an icon on your desktop that will take you directly to the Elements Help files. It’s not as graceful as accessing through the software, but it might work. Just don’t ask me how to do that, because I don’t remember! 🙂
fpt95,
Frank, there are some folks, such as myself, who have had trouble accessing the help files using XP. I think it is more common for people who are using PSE version 1 as I do. My Dell is similar to yours.
I found a very workable solution by following the advice of Rich C (whom we fondly call "the Adobe Guy" because he does indeed work for them). Creating a shortcut to the help files is what Beth refers to. I did this by using Explorer to open the PSE help folder. All the pages of the folder are displayed on the right hand side. Now just drag the icon for a page (any page at all) down to the Quick Launch area on your task bar. When you click on the QL icon, the help file page opens. On this page you can click on Search or click on Index to find what you are looking for. This is a slick workaround.
Let us know if this works out for you.
Nancy
Thanks for filling in the missing pieces Nancy! 🙂
Beth,
I am impressed you are so "ambidexterous"!
Nancy
I do seem to pick up some interesting "talents"! 🙂
Hi Beth,
Your suggestion worked great! So nice to have my help files, and my tutorials back. Thank you and Rich C for the help. Now I know where to go when I’m in trouble.
Frank
