OFF2000: Cannot Access Help Topic When Drive Not Available

• Microsoft Office 2000
• Microsoft Access 2000
• Microsoft Excel 2000
• Microsoft Word 2000

SYMPTOMS

When you click a Help topic from the Office Assistant, nothing happens and the Help topic is not displayed.

CAUSE

This problem occurs when the focus of an Office program is set to a drive that is no longer available. The following cases describe the most common situations where this can occur.

Case 1: Floppy Disk Drive

• After you open or close a file on a floppy disk and then remove the disk from the drive.
  
  -or-



• After you access a floppy disk using the Open or Save As commands, click Cancel, and then remove the floppy disk from the drive.

Case 2: Network Drive

• After you have disconnected from a network drive on which you have opened or closed a file.
  
  -or-



• After you have opened or closed a file on a network drive and the network drive is now unavailable because of a network outage or a momentary disruption.

WORKAROUND

To change the focus of the Office program to an available drive, click Open on the File menu, and then click Cancel.

STATUS

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

MORE INFORMATION

When you use the Open command and the Office program detects that the drive it has been working with is now unavailable, the Office program will change the focus back to the hard disk. Once the focus of the Office program is changed to an available drive, you can click a Help topic, and the Help topic will be displayed.

Additional query words: OFF2000 help unavailable not available

Keywords          : kbdta 
Version           : WINDOWS:2000
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbbug 

Last Reviewed: July 19, 1999