The VisualAge Help System enables the display of online help information for a number of IBM software products. When you press F1 or select a Help menu item from the user interface of one of these products, a browser should open and help for the product should be displayed. If you are having problems starting or using the online help for your product, this document can help you resolve them.
The VisualAge Help System consists of three major components:
In most cases, all three components run on the machine where the product is installed.
To begin resolving your problem, follow these three steps:
Read the summary 1.2 Special considerations, and then read any sections listed there that apply to your product or environment
The following IBM products use the VisualAge Help System as of February 2001:
If you are using an IBM software product released after November 2000 and it is not in the above list, you can determine whether that product uses the VisualAge Help System by typing the following in a command prompt:
vahcfg list /f %IMNINSTSRV% | more
and looking for the name of your product on lines that start with Product:. If your product appears in the list, it uses the VisualAge Help System. If it does not appear in the list, or if you get a message indicating that the command is not recognized, you can contact IBM support to determine whether your IBM product uses the VisualAge Help System.
You should read the following sections if the product, environment, or problem described matches your situation:
From the product's Help menu, choose Help Home Page (or the corresponding menu item for your product). If no Help menu is available, try pressing F1 from within one of the panes of your product's user interface. What happens?
If help displays correctly, the two other potential issues are:
If your problem is not one of the above, contact IBM support. See http://www.ibm.com/software/ad/support for further information.
Note: this section does not apply to Component Broker or WebSphere Business Components. For Component Broker please see the information on help troubleshooting in the doc\readme directory.
If nothing happens with VisualAge for Java, Version 3.5 and you use a desktop icon to launch the VisualAge for Java IDE, see 2.1 Special case - VisualAge for Java, Version 3.5.
If nothing happens when you try to launch help, your first step should be to determine whether you can launch help from the command line. To do this, you will first need to know what directory you installed your product in. In the text that follows, wherever you see INSTALL_DIR, you should substitute the actual directory your product was installed in, for example x:\ibmvjava or "x:\Program Files\IBM\VisualAge for Java". Use quotation marks around the entire path (INSTALL_DIR plus any subdirectory or filename) when the path contains spaces. Follow these steps to try launching the help from the command line:
g: cd "\Program Files\IBM\VisualAge for Java"
dir /s /b vahelp.exe
If this returns:
g:\Program Files\IBM\VisualAge for Java\eab\bin\vahelp.exe
You would then type:
cd eab\bin
If help launches successfully from the command line and you can search the help successfully, there may be a problem with the way your path is set up, that prevents your product's user interface from connecting to the help system DLL. See 2.1 Special case - VisualAge for Java 3.5, or, for other products, try uninstalling and reinstalling your product, as this sometimes solves such problems.
If you are satisfied with launching help from the command line as a workaround or temporary fix, you can create an icon on your desktop to do so. See 11.0 Creating an icon to launch product help.
If the help does not load from the command line, or if it loads from the command line but not from within the product, you may not have the proper file associations set up for your browser within the Windows registry. See 16.0 Setting HTML file associations in the Windows registry.
If changing file associations also does not help, you can try the following to obtain a log file from the help system:
In the directory pointed to by the TMP environment variable, you should see one or more files of type HTML*.C2T. These files contain detailed log information on requests made to the help system. You can send these files to IBM support to have them analyzed. A fee may apply to support requests. You can also try to examine these files yourself to see if you can determine what is causing the failure.
If you do not see any HTML*.C2T files in your TEMP directory, try invoking help from the command line again. If HTML*.C2T files only get created from the command line, the problem is with your product invoking the help. If neither method of invoking help produces log files, the help system itself has a problem. In either case you can contact IBM support.
Remember to remove the HTMLHELP_LOG=1 line from your product help configuration file when you are done, as the logging will produce unnecessary log files each time you request help.
If you are still unable to launch help by any method, check that your product help configuration file is still valid. Open INSTALL_DIR\HELP_DIR\CONFIG_FILE in an editor and verify that:
For VisualAge for Java, Version 3.5, if you cannot launch help from the IDE but you can from the command line, you may be invoking the IDE using the wrong shortcut. This happens if you manually create or edit a shortcut to the IDE on your desktop or within the Start menu, and invoke the IDE from that shortcut. It can also happen if you are using a shortcut created for Version 3.0 or 3.02, and you are now using it to launch Version 3.5. Follow these steps to determine if this is the problem:
If help works when you invoke the IDE from the Start menu, but not from the icon or shortcut you usually use, that icon or shortcut is probably pointing to VAJ_INSTALL_DIR\ide\program\ide.exe, which will successfully launch the IDE but will not support help because the PATH environment variable does not point to the help system DLL. You can solve this problem by editing the Target field of the shortcut to point to VAJ_INSTALL_DIR\ide\program\ivjenv.bat. This batch file changes your Windows environment variables so that help will work properly from within the IDE.
If launching help causes a browser to open or come to the foreground, but the browser cannot connect to localhost:49213, there are three possible problems:
Check each of the following subsections in turn to solve any possible problems with web server or browser misconfiguration.
HTTPDL.EXE is an HTTP server process that supports local access only. It is part of the NetQuestion component. It is used to serve help pages to your local browser. Check whether the process HTTPDL.EXE appears in your task list.
If the task is not present, the help system may have been unable to start it. First try invoking it from the command line to see if it returns an error message:
Change to the directory where NetQuestion is installed (see 15.0 Finding the NetQuestion Installation Directory)
If this returns the error Binding the socket failed, then an HTTPDL.EXE process is probably already running on port 49213 (the TCP/IP port used by the HTTPDL.EXE process). If it returns any other error, contact IBM support. If it returns without any error, check the task list to ensure that it is running in the background. Versions of HTTPDL.EXE dated 02/12/2000 or earlier lock the command prompt if they do not detect an error; later versions continue running without locking the command prompt. If your version locks the command prompt, press Ctrl+Break and issue the following command to start the process as a detached process instead:
nqdetach httpdl.exe -r httpd.cnf
Now try reloading the page in your browser. If the page displays correctly, the help system had trouble starting the HTTP server (or, for Component Broker, the server is not set up to start at logon time). See 13.0 Starting the NetQuestion servers automatically.
If the page still does not display, see 3.2 HTTPDL.EXE is misconfigured and 3.3 Browser needs proxy overrides.
On occasion the configuration file httpd.cnf, used by HTTPDL.EXE, may contain incorrect path information. Follow these steps to verify that it is properly configured:
Serverroot C:\IMNNQ_NT Exec /cgi-bin/* C:\IMNNQ_NT\* Pass /icons/* C:\IMNNQ_NT\* Pass /* C:\IMNNQ_NT\*
Verify that the path indicated corresponds to the directory the httpd.cnf file is stored in. If it does not, change it in all above occurrences to reflect the actual path.
Hostname localhost Port 49213
Replace any existing Hostname or Port lines with the above if they differ.
Sometimes your browser cannot connect to the local web server HTTPDL.EXE because it tries to locate the machine named localhost through a proxy server. This typically happens when your browser is set up for manual or automatic proxy configuration. If you use manual proxy configuration, you can modify your browser settings to prevent the browser from trying to resolve localhost through a proxy server. If you use automatic proxy configuration, you will need to ask the owner of your automatic proxy configuration file to add 127.0.0.1 as a proxy exception on the proxy server.
To determine whether your browser is set up for manual proxy configuration, and to add proxy overrides if it is, follow these steps. These instructions are for the browser versions indicated; if you are using a different browser version, the steps may be different:
For Netscape 4.7:
For Internet Explorer 5.0:
You should also update the file %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts by adding the line:
127.0.0.1 localhost
if the file exists but that line is not already present. If you change this value you may need to exit and restart your browser for the change to take effect.
If you made any changes to browser configuration or the ...\etc\hosts file, try reloading the help home page in your browser. If you still get errors trying to connect to locahost:49213, contact IBM support.
If your automatic proxy server is not accessible when you try to view the help, your browser may be unable to resolve localhost to the local address 127.0.0.1. You can temporarily solve this problem (while the proxy server is unavailable) by changing to direct connection to the Internet in step 4 (Netscape) or step 3 (Internet Explorer) above.
If you get a File Not Found error when trying to view the help or trying to search, a file may be missing from the NetQuestion installation directory. Read the following sections to find out more.
If you get a File Not Found error when trying to view the help, the file vahwebx.exe is probably not in the NetQuestion installation directory. Check the directory in a command prompt or Windows Explorer to verify whether the file is present. If it is, there is probably a problem with the NetQuestion local web server configuration; httpd.cnf may point to the wrong directory. See 3.2 HTTPDL.EXE is misconfigured above. If the file vahwebx.exe is absent, you can try one or more of the following:
Reload the browser page. If help now works, you have solved the problem. If you continue to get a File Not Found error, contact IBM support. If you get the message There is no help registered for product xxxxx, see 6.0 Reconfiguring help.
If you get a File Not Found error when trying to search the help, the search program specified in your search form may not be installed in the proper location. Follow these steps to determine the name and location:
<form action="http://localhost:49213/cgi-bin/ivjsenus.exe"...> <form action="http://localhost:49213/cgi-bin/va4sall.exe"...>
The name of the search program is the portion of the action= attribute after "cgi-bin", that is, ivjsenus.exe or va4sall.exe in the above examples.
You may also get broken images in your search results page, or a message Search form header not found or Search form footer not found. These errors result from other files missing from your NetQuestion installation directory. You may be able to locate these on your product CD, or you can obtain them from IBM support. The file names are all specified inside the search form. You can view the source for your search form to determine the names. Look for the value= parameters of the following hidden input fields:
<input type="hidden" name="header" value="ivjhenus.htm"> <input type="hidden" name="footer" value="ivjfoot.htm"> <input type="hidden" name="stars1" value="ivjstar1.gif"> <input type="hidden" name="stars2" value="ivjstar2.gif"> <input type="hidden" name="stars3" value="ivjstar3.gif"> <input type="hidden" name="stars4" value="ivjstar4.gif"> <input type="hidden" name="stars5" value="ivjstar5.gif">
The highlighted entries are those for VisualAge for Java. Equivalent entries for other products include, in place of ivj:
An Internal server error message usually indicates that an application running on the web server has crashed. You may also see a Windows dialog with the title program.exe - Application Error and a message beginning with The instruction at "0xnnnnnnnn" referenced memory at "0xnnnnnnnn". If you dismiss this dialog by selecting OK the browser then displays the Internal server error message.
If this error occurs during a search operation, there may be problems with your product search indices. Try reconfiguring help for your product, then enter the search query again. If this does not solve the problem, contact IBM support.
If this error occurs during normal browsing of the help, there may be problems with directory permissions on an NTFS file system. Log off your Windows NT or Windows 2000 system, log back on as an administrator, and verify that all files and folders within both the NetQuestion installation directory and the product help directory (_INSTALL_DIR\doc or INSTALL_DIR\help, depending on the product) have their security permissions set to Everyone - Full Control. To do this:
If you made changes to permissions, close these dialogs and try reloading the page. If you did not need to make changes to permissions, or if the error persists after you made the changes, try erasing the file vahelp.cfg from the NetQuestion installation directory, then reconfiguring the help for your product.
If you continue to see Internal server error messages, contact IBM support.
In some situations the help system may have misconfigured the help for a particular product, or you may have had to remove some configuration information while trying to fix an installation. You can reconfigure the help for your product by following the instructions below. Before you begin, you need to know:
The first part of this process involves determining whether the help is configured already, and merely needs to be refreshed. To determine whether help for your product is configured, type the following in a command prompt:
vahcfg list /f %IMNINSTSRV% | more
You should see a set of product and component listings for each product that has been configured for help. If you see a product whose directory matches your product directory, note the name of the product. For example, if the output from vahcfg list includes the following:
Product: va400 (IBM WebSphere Development Tools for AS/400 Help System) Writable directory: C:\Program Files\IBM\WDT400\help No update files for this product Comp: qadtswin (WebSphere Development Tools for AS/400) Zip file: C:\Program Files\IBM\WDT400\help\qadtswin.zip Index: va45uadt ...
The product name is va400. If you see an entry for your product, you can reconfigure the help using the vahcfg regen command. If you do not see an entry for your product, you need to reconfigure the help using the vahcfg install command. Both are described later in this section.
Before you run vahcfg regen or vahcfg install, you should also ensure that the disk on which the documentation directory is located has sufficient free space to accommodate the search indices for the product help. These indices are extracted from the *.zip files in the documentation directory, and written to subdirectories of the documentation directory by the vahcfg program. As a general rule, you should have at least as much free space on the disk as the amount of space used by the zip files in the documentation directory.
To run vahcfg regen, issue the following command:
vahcfg regen /p prodname /f %IMNINSTSRV%
where prodname matches the product name you noted when running vahcfg list.
To run vahcfg install, issue the following command:
vahcfg install /w docdir /f %IMNINSTSRV%
where docdir is the full path to the directory containing the product help files. If that directory contains spaces within it (e.g. c:\Program Files\IBM\..., enclose the entire directory path in quotation marks.
After the installation or regeneration (which may take several minutes), try reloading the help. If the problem you were trying to correct persists, follow the steps in 6.5 Obtaining a log file from vahcfg regen or vahcfg install, contact IBM support, and forward the log file to IBM support.
If you attempted to regenerate or install the help for your product using vahcfg regen or vahcfg install, and the attempt did not resolve your help problems, try the following to produce a log file which IBM support can use to further diagnose your problem:
You can then provide the generated log file to IBM support.
Note that some early versions of vahcfg do not produce a log file. Versions that do not support logging will print all output to the screen; versions that do support logging will print a message indicating where the information is being logged.
The NetQuestion search system is extremely fast at finding matches to all but the most generic search queries. If you search for matches to the string a*, the search system must find all documents containing at least one word starting with the letter a, so this always takes longer. But if your search is specific, you can expect search results within a few seconds at the longest. If a search appears to take excessively long (for example, over 1 minute), you may be experiencing a problem relating to using Netscape Navigator 4.5 or higher on a Windows 2000 system. (This problem also occurs on some Windows NT systems.)
There is a known problem with Netscape (versions 4.5 to 4.74 and possibly others) on some Windows 2000 machines, that may make searching the online help extremely slow. When you submit a form from these versions of Netscape, the Netscape application uses most available processor cycles on your machine until a response is received from the remote system. (You can verify this by opening the Windows Task manager page during such a search, switching to the Processes tab, and clicking on the CPU column header. If you are experiencing the problem described here, netscape.exe will appear at the top of this list and will be using 97-99% of CPU time.)
This CPU usage is not normally a problem when doing a remote search (e.g. on a website). However, because the product's search program is running on your own local machine, the fact that Netscape takes so much CPU time means that there is very little CPU time left over for the search program to perform its search. As a result, a search action that should return a result within a second may take several minutes on Windows 2000.
You can avoid this performance problem on Windows 2000 by selecting a different, non-Netscape window after each time you submit a search. This typically causes Netscape to stop using excessive CPU cycles while waiting for a response, and search results are usually displayed within a second after doing this window switch. The same technique may also work on Windows NT although less consistently.
Alternatively, you can use Microsoft Internet Explorer to view the help, as the performance problem does not occur with this browser.
You may receive one of the following error messages when performing a help system search from your browser:
This can occur in two situations:
The return code of 73 is typically not returned on a truly empty search request, only on one consisting only of stopwords. If you can reliably reproduce the message indicating an empty search request when the search string is clearly not empty (and is not a stopwords-only search), your search form may be corrupted. Locate the search forms hgssrch.htm and hgcsrch.htm from the product help directory (typically INSTALL_DIR\doc or INSTALL_DIR\help) and provide these to your support representative when you contact IBM support.
You may see any of a number of other error messages when attempting to search. If your error is one of the following, try the recommended action before contacting IBM support.
Cause: The help client was unable to start the search service (or, for Component Broker, the search service is not set up to start automatically at logon time). This can occur whether you are searching on the local machine (http://localhost:49213) or on a remote help server.
Recommended action (local help):
See 3.1 HTTPDL.EXE is not running, and specifically the section on importing the autostart registry entries, so that the search service starts automatically when you log on. For a quick workaround, you can open a command prompt and type:
imnss start serverIf this command returns with a message that includes the line:
The search service has been started.then you should be able to perform the search again, without this rc=33 error.
Recommended action (remotely served help):
The server machine's NetQuestion search process may not be running because the machine rebooted and no one is currently logged onto the machine. See 14.0 Starting the NetQuestion search service at boot time.
Cause: The search program did not receive any valid index names in the search request. The search form may have become corrupted, or the specified indices may no longer be registered, or there may be a problem with the NetQuestion installation.
Recommended action: First, delete all hg*.htm files from the product help directory (INSTALL_DIR\doc or INSTALL_DIR\help). Then try to reconfigure help for your product. If the problem persists, you may need to reinstall NetQuestion and then reconfigure help for your product again.
Cause: The search form specified a nonexistent search form header or footer (a file containing an HTML fragment to be placed above or below search results).
Recommended action: See 4.2 File Not Found errors when trying to search for further information.
Cause: You entered a search query that has too many word matches. The search engine cannot handle a query that contains matches to more than 1024 different words. For example, if you enter the search string "a* b* c* d*" (without the quotation marks), you are asking for any documents containing words starting with any of the letters a, b, c, or d. Because so many words match these search criteria, the search engine cannot produce a meaningful, sorted list of search hits, so it does not try.
Recommended action: Enter a search request that will produce fewer word hits.
Cause: You entered a search query that is not logically valid. For example a search query of "-java" (show all documents not containing the word java) is not considered valid.
Recommended action: Enter a search request that contains at least one non-forbidden term.
Cause: This error may occur when the search program is unable to read environment variables required for successful search operation. If you have configured the help to run on a web server other than NetQuestion's HTTPDL.EXE web server, you may need to change the web server settings to ensure that certain environment variables are visible to the search CGI (the program that is invoked from the "action=" parameter of the <form> tag within the search form). On some web servers, system environment variables are hidden by default. The variables the search CGI needs access to are IMNINSTSRV and IMNINST. Netscape Enterprise Server is an example of a web server that hides environment variables by default.
Recommended action: Modify your web server settings, either to export these environment variables to web server CGI applications manually, or to make all local environment variables visible to CGIs. On Netscape Enterprise Server you can do this by following these steps:
set imn
The system should return settings for the IMNINST and IMNINSTSRV variables, such as:
IMNINST=help IMNINSTSRV=C:\IMNNQ_NT
Init fn="init-cgi" IMNINSTSRV=c:/imnnq_nt Init fn="init-cgi" IMNINST=help
"WARNING: The configuration files have been edited by hand. Use this button to load the latest configuration files."
click Load Configuration files.
For other web servers, consult the web server documentation for information on making environment variables visible to CGI applications.
Cause: An rc=32 error or an error that mentions the file NETQ.CFG occurs when NetQuestion cannot properly access a product index. This may happen because the NetQuestion installation or a particular index has become corrupted, or it may happen on only the first search you perform on a given index after a reboot. Note that although the message for some forms of this error mentions the file NETQ.CFG, this file does not actually exist; the error refers to problems with other NetQuestion index configuration files.
Recommended action: Determine the likely cause of the problem and correct as described below:
If a search returns with an rc=76 error message, one or more of your search indices may need to be reset. Follow these steps to reset your indices:
In some situations the only way to get your help working properly is to uninstall and then reinstall NetQuestion, then reconfigure the help for products that use the VisualAge Help System. Note that uninstalling NetQuestion may remove search indices used by products, such as IBM DB2, that do not use the VisualAge Help System, and may therefore prevent searching of the help for those products after NetQuestion is reinstalled. You may need to reinstall the product in question to restore its search indices.
In the instructions that follow, issue all commands from a command prompt. Before you begin, you need to determine the NetQuestion installation directory.
The NetQuestion uninstall program, uninstnq.exe in the NetQuestion directory, will remove NetQuestion only if no indices are registered. You can first remove any indices registered by products that use the IBM VisualAge Help System by issuing the vahcfg remove command for each such product. Follow these steps:
After removing all such products you can check whether any indices are still registered for other products by typing the following command:
imnixlst
If the resulting list contains entries beginning with DB2, CXX, or VAC, you probably have indices registered with products such as DB2, IBM C and C++ Compilers, or VisualAge C++ 4.0, which do not use the VisualAge Help System. If you proceed with manually uninstalling NetQuestion, you will lose these indices and may need to reinstall the respective products to search the help for those products again. If such indices are still listed and you are prepared to lose search capabilities for those products or to reinstall those products, proceed to delete the remaining indices as follows:
If indices whose names begin with IVJ3, VJ32, IWZ, or VA45 are listed, it is safe to delete them because they can later be restored using vahcfg install.
If you are unable to delete all remaining indices because of a NetQuestion error, you may need to manually remove NetQuestion (see section 11.4 below).
Issue the command uninstnq and wait a few minutes, until you notice that the NetQuestion directory is almost empty. The directory should not contain any files beginning with imn* or imq*. You may need to wait up to ten minutes for this to complete. If after ten minutes the directory still contains imn* or imq* files, there may be indices still registered with the search service (in which case return to section 11.2), or the NetQuestion installation may be corrupted (proceed to section 11.4). Otherwise, reboot and proceed to section 11.5.
If you are unable to remove NetQuestion using uninstnq.exe, you can remove it manually as follows:
To change or remove environment variables, follow the platform-specific steps below:
To reinstall NetQuestion, you will need your product CD or a NetQuestion installation zip file from IBM support. The following products have an installable copy of NetQuestion on their product CD:
For other products, you can determine whether there is an installable copy of NetQuestion on the CD by searching for a file named ntq_sbcs.iss. The directory containing this file should contain a setup.exe file that can launch the NetQuestion installation.
If you receive an installation zip file from IBM, unzip it to a temporary directory.
Once you have obtained an installable copy of NetQuestion, follow these steps:
For each product you manually removed from the help system (using vahcfg remove, as directed in section 11.1), run vahcfg install as described in 6.0 Reconfiguring help. You should now be able to browse and search your product help. If errors persist, check other sections of this document for possible solutions, or contact IBM support.
If you cannot launch help from within your product's user interface, you can create an icon to launch it by double-clicking on an icon (so that you can at least use help while you work on solving your problem).
Notes
You can create a shortcut to launch product help as follows:
instance "INSTALL_DIR\DOC_DIR\CONFIG_FILE" open index.htm
where INSTALL_DIR is the directory where the product is installed, DOC_DIR is typically doc or help, and CONFIG_FILE is the name of the product help configuration file (ivjhlp.cfg for VisualAge for Java; see 2.0 Nothing happens when you try to start the help for information on determining directories and configuration file names for other products). Make sure the full path to the configuration file is in quotation marks if that path contains spaces.
You can add the created icon to the Start menu by right-clicking over the icon, choosing Copy from the pop-up menu, then in Windows Explorer navigating down through the Windows installation directory, under ...\Profiles\All Users\Start Menu, and pasting it into that directory or an appropriate subdirectory thereof.
You can install and configure the help system on a Windows NT or Windows 2000 web server, so that other members of your organization can view and search the online help over a network without having to use the NetQuestion and help system code installed on their workstations.
Product notes
To do this network installation, you must have web server software, such as Microsoft Peer Web Services (PWS) or Microsoft IIS, installed on the server. The web server should have a scripts directory. (In PWS and IIS, your scripts directory is usually located under x:\inetpub.) After installing the server software, complete the following steps:
vahwebx.exe vahwebx.cat vahelp.cfg *foot.htm *head.htm *henus.htm
The first three files are required; subsequent files should be copied if present, but if they are missing from the NetQuestion directory there should be no need for them in the x:\inetpub\scripts directory.
HTML_HOSTNAME=server.city.domain.organization CGI_BIN_DIR=scripts START_LITE_DAEMON=0 START_NETQ_DAEMON=0
Users should then be able to access the server-based help simply by pressing F1 or selecting a Help menu item from within their IBM application. Or they can access the help by using the following URL:
http://YourHostname/scripts/vahwebx.exe/help/prodname/Extract/0/index.htm
where prodname is:
If you later run vahcfg install or vahcfg regen on the server system, you need to edit the mapping file in step 3 above again.
Once users have modified their product help configuration files to point to the server, they can safely run the following command to delete all *.toc, *.htm, and *.zip files as well as search index files, from their product help directory:
vahcfg remove /p prodname /f %IMNINSTSRV%
or they can simply delete the *.toc, *.htm and *.zip files manually. However, this method will not delete the index directories below the product help directory, so these also will need to be deleted manually.
See 14.0 Starting the NetQuestion search server at boot time instead of this section, if you are configuring the server in a networked help configuration.
You can set the HTTP and search servers to start automatically at logon by setting two registry entries on your system. To set these entries, follow these steps:
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] "IMNNQ"="nqdetach.exe imnss.exe start server" "IMNNQ NetQ Web Server"="nqdetach.exe httpdl.exe -r %IMNINSTSRV%\\httpd.cnf"
This will import two entries into your registry so that the next time you log on (or reboot on Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows ME) the servers should start automatically.
If you are using a networked help configuration in which help is delivered from a server and not from your own machine, you may experience problems performing searches on the remote machine. When NetQuestion's search daemon is set up to start automatically (during product installation, or after you followed the steps in 13.0 Starting the NetQuestion servers automatically) the daemon does not actually start until a user logs into the server machine. This means that after a system reboot, before the user of the machine has first logged on, the search daemon is not running. You can, however, use the Windows Task Scheduler to start the search daemon at boot time. The instructions in this section apply to the machine that is serving the help.
Note: If you are not using a network help configuration, there is no need to follow the steps in this section.
Before you start, you should determine the NetQuestion installation directory. You may also want do some manual registry cleaning. Your registry may contain entries to start the NetQuestion search daemon at log-on time. If you are going to be starting the daemon at boot time, the registry entry is unnecessary. To clean up the registry:
Now you can tell Windows to start the servers at boot time. First, check whether the Microsoft Windows Task Scheduler is installed on the machine that acts as a help server:
To setup the NetQuestion Search Server to start at boot time on the help server:
Note: After the help server machine is rebooted, it may take a full minute or longer after the login screen appears before Windows starts the search server.
You can determine the location of the NetQuestion installation directory by opening a command prompt and typing:
set IMNINSTSRV
The directory returned is the NetQuestion installation directory. If the variable is not set, you can determine the installation directory by looking in the Windows registry. Enter regedit in a command prompt, and expand the registry entries to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IBM\NetQuestion\CurrentVersion\Installation Directory. The "Directory" entry of that key should point to the NetQuestion installation directory.
On Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows ME, if the IMNINSTSRV environment variable is not set but you can find the directory from the registry, you may need to edit your autoexec.bat file. (If you encounter this condition on Windows Millennium Edition, see 17.0 Special considerations for Windows Millennium Edition.) The NetQuestion installation process should have modified autoexec.bat to add a command to call the batch file imnenv.bat stored in the NetQuestion directory. The added command looks like the following:
if exist _NETQ_DIR_\imnenv.bat call _NETQ_DIR_\imnenv.bat
If this line is missing, or _NETQ_DIR_ points to the wrong directory, add the line with the correct NetQuestion directory. You should also verify that the imnenv.bat batch file being called within autoexec.bat actually exists and contains entries that point to the current directory and not some other NetQuestion directory. The contents of imnenv.bat should be:
@echo off set IMNINSTSRV=_NETQ_DIR_ set IMNINST=help set PATH=PATH;%IMNINSTSRV%
If you cannot launch help either from the browser or from a command line, you may not have an appropriate file association set up for HTML files. The Help System client code uses registry entries to determine the default system browser based on these file associations. You can check your file associations using the registry editor:
If you do not see such an entry, you can add the entry as follows:
For Netscape Communicator:
user_pref("browser.wfe.ignore_def_check", true);
For Internet Explorer:
If you are using Windows Millennium Edition, changes you make to autoexec.bat to load the NetQuestion environment variables may not take effect even after a reboot; the changes may disappear after a reboot. This can cause the NetQuestion environment variables to remain undefined, which in turn can cause the following kinds of failures:
You can determine if this is the cause of help problems by checking, after the reboot, whether the environment variables are correctly set. If they still are not set, you can use the msconfig.exe program found in the Windows system directory, to make the following environment changes:
Component Broker does not use the client portion of the VisualAge Help System, the portion that launches help from an F1 or Help menu action in the user interface. This has two important implications:
Component Broker provides additional information on help troubleshooting in the doc\readme directory.
On systems where the installed help is either partially or wholly written in Simplified Chinese (locale zh_CN), Taiwanese (zh_TW), Korean (ko_KR) or Japanese (ja_JP), you need to make changes to the vahcfg and NetQuestion commands as follows:
vahcfg regen /p vj32 /f %IMNINSTSRV% /l ja_JP
Failure to include the locale may cause search indices and the NetQuestion search system to become corrupted.
| SBCS command | DBCS command |
| imnixlst | imqixlst |
| imnixdel | imqixdel |
| imnss start server | imqss -start dbcshelp |
These changes are required because NetQuestion uses different executable files and servers for its single-byte and double-byte search systems.