TCC v16 crashes when I hit F1 to view help

[MickeyF]

I'm a few versions back - v16.03.55 x64. When I try to view the help by hitting F1, TCC crashes. Tell me where to find a dump file and I'll upload it. But if I run TCMD instead, F1 loads the help just fine. I've been using v16 for a long time and this never happened, and now it happens 100% of the time. The only recent change I can think of to my system is that we had our Internet Explorer upgraded from either v9 or v10 up to v11. That may or may not be relevant, but I figured I would at least report it.

 

[rconn]

Microsoft broke IE's help engine with one of the recent updates. TCMD v18 & v19 have a workaround for this, but we haven't back-ported to prior versions.

 

[MickeyF]

Thanks for the info, Rex. Do you know if Microsoft is going to be fixing what they broke? Or if not, will you be helping us slightly more back version (v16 for me)?

 

[rconn]

I doubt Microsoft is going to fix it (it's been broken for more than a year). MS deprecates .chm files, so I don't think they're motivated to fix it. Maybe this is their way to force everybody to use web help ...

 

[MickeyF]

I can accept if your position is that you'll only provide a workaround for the current and previous releases, and I'm now three back. That's reasonable. But Microsoft's way of forcing everyone to accept their worldview is continually maddening. For example, most of our customer base operate in an environment where they specifically are NOT connected to the internet, and cannot be connected. Yet Microsoft insists on operations that require connectivity, which means that sometimes we have to go through hoops with our product designs in order to meet our customer requirements and Microsoft's needlessly restrictive constraints.

 

[Charles Dye]

Rex, do you know which update it was that broke the .CHM functionality? Perhaps it's something that end users can uninstall to resolve the issue?

 

[rconn]

I can accept if your position is that you'll only provide a workaround for the current and previous releases, and I'm now three back. That's reasonable. But Microsoft's way of forcing everyone to accept their worldview is continually maddening. For example, most of our customer base operate in an environment where they specifically are NOT connected to the internet, and cannot be connected. Yet Microsoft insists on operations that require connectivity, which means that sometimes we have to go through hoops with our product designs in order to meet our customer requirements and Microsoft's needlessly restrictive constraints.

You could switch TCMD & TCC to use web help (which is what Microsoft wants you to do).

In TCC, OPTION / Startup / Web Help.

in TCMD, Options / Advanced / Web Help.

 

[MickeyF]

Switching to use Web Help means I get the latest release's version's help, not my installed version. I switched and when I hit F1, I got v19 help,not v16. Maybe there is an environment variable I need to set to tell it which help to find?

 

[rconn]

Switching to use Web Help means I get the latest release's version's help, not my installed version. I switched and when I hit F1, I got v19 help,not v16. Maybe there is an environment variable I need to set to tell it which help to find?

We only maintain one copy of the web help (the current version).

 

[TEA-Time]

Rex, do you know which update it was that broke the .CHM functionality? Perhaps it's something that end users can uninstall to resolve the issue?

It's the same issue as in the thread at the link below. It's a security update (but what isn't?? heh), so it's probably not wise to remove it just to fix help.

https://jpsoft.com/forums/threads/problem-with-help.6946/