Help! My help is gone!

For one reason or another the help files suddenly take a flyer—usually after installing a new Adobe product—and when you try to access online help you are rewarded with—nothing. Absolutely nothing happens. Here are a couple things to try when this happens to you.

For products using Adobe Help Center:

Read this Adobe tech document. It will tell you how to get you help working when it fails to install properly.

For products before Adobe Help Center:

Make sure help was installed

If you did a custom install you have to scroll down and make sure both Adobe Online and Help are checked to be installed. If you didn't check those during the install, that may be it. Reinstall and make sure they're checked.

If help has been installed

If you did a typical install and you know help is there (you can see it in the folder), try the following solution. Delete the Web folder in the Adobe folder, and then reinstall online Help
and Adobe Online from the Adobe application CD-ROM by following these steps:

1. Exit from all applications.

2. Delete the Web folder and its contents in the X:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe folder, where X is the startup drive.

3. Insert the Illustrator or Photoshop application CD into the CD-ROM drive. Autoplay starts. (If Autoplay does not start, open Windows Explorer, right-click the CD, and select Autoplay from the pop-up menu.)

4. Follow the on-screen instructions until the [Adobe application] Setup dialog box appears.

5. Select Custom.

6. For Destination Folder, select the folder where the Adobe application is installed, and click Next.

7. Scroll through the list of components, and select Help and Adobe Online; then click Next.

8. Click Next in the screen that displays the Current Settings list.

9. Follow the remaining on-screen instructions.

10. Restart the computer when the installation is complete.

Note: If the message "Some required Adobe Online files are missing. Would you like to download them now?" appears after you reinstall online Help and Adobe Online, click Yes, and follow the on-screen instructions.