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Reader Question: Internet Explorer cannot download / from windows

Question:

Hi Tony

Since a few days I have a very weird problem

When I try open the helpfiles I receive an error saying that internet explorer can’t find the files (see attached screenshot error1)error1.gif

I use Firefox 2 as default browser

First I thought it was because of that but even after I put IE as default browser again I received the same error

Do you have any idea what I could do to get that fixed?

Best Regards

Answer:

My original answer didn’t work (it’s below, in case it’s still useful to someone), so I did some more research and found Kristan Kenney’s blog, which says:

If you have been getting the dreaded “Internet Explorer cannot download / from help” error message when attempting to open Help and Support in Windows Vista, try this fix. It re-associates the .xml file type with its default settings. Once you’ve merged this into the registry, re-launch Help and Support and it should work.

You can download the fix at http://www.chris123nt.com/guides/RTM_Fixes/Fix_Help_and_Support.zip.

Hope this helps!

The fix is just a .reg file that udpates the registry. Here’s what the .reg file looks like (in case it disappears in the future):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml]
@=”xmlfile”
“Content Type”=”text/xml”
“PerceivedType”=”text”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\OpenWithList\winword.exe]
@=”"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml\PersistentHandler]
@=”{7E9D8D44-6926-426F-AA2B-217A819A5CCE}”

Unfortunately, it looks like this is a very common problem. Hopefully Microsoft will release an official fix soon. Looks like this fixed the reader’s problem:

Hi Tony

YES that did it :) :) :)

You are the greatest. THANKS a lot for the help

You’re welcome :). Here’s my original response (which didn’t solve the problem):

Heya. I haven’t seen that error, but I’d like you to try a couple of things and get back to me. First, try clearing your Internet Explorer cache by followign these steps:

  1. Open Internet Explorer. Click Tools, and then click Internet Options.
  2. On the General tab, under Browsing history, click Delete.
  3. On the Delete Browsing History dialog, under Temporary Internet Files, click Delete Files. Under History, click Delete History.
  4. Click OK twice. Close Internet Explorer.

Now, try to open Help again. If it works, you’re done.

If it still doesn’t work, let’s do one more thing to try and delete the history:

  1. Log on using a different user account.
  2. Click Start and type Cmd. Right-click Cmd on the Start menu, and then click Run As Administrator. Respond to the UAC prompt that appears.
  3. Type the following commands (where username is the name of your regular user account):
    cd “\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\”
    del index.dat
  4. Restart your computer.

Hopefully, it’ll work then. Let us know how it turns out (you can send an e-mail or add a comment).

For more information, read the Windows Vista Resource Kit (co-authored by your very own Tony Northrup). Got a question for Tony? Send an e-mail to qa@vistaclues.com.

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Posted: March 8th, 2007 under Internet Explorer, Reader Questions, Troubleshoot.
Comments: 51

Comments

Comment from Keatch
Time: March 11, 2007, 2:21 pm

Thanks man, that really helped. That problem had been really annoying me since installing vista. Cheers

Comment from Kieron
Time: March 11, 2007, 4:48 pm

Worked a charm, thanks alot. Been killing me with errors when you need help.

Comment from Mesut
Time: March 18, 2007, 5:30 pm

Thank you, it worked for me!

Comment from shanka
Time: March 20, 2007, 1:13 am

Thanks a lot. Registry change worked for me

Pingback from Reader Question: Where is Help? - Windows Vista help
Time: March 20, 2007, 11:34 am

[...] has come up before–running this .reg file should solve your problems. For more information, read the Windows Vista Resource Kit (co-authored by your very own Tony [...]

Comment from Andy k
Time: March 20, 2007, 2:59 pm

thnx a tonn!!!
worked gr8!

Comment from lfl
Time: March 21, 2007, 6:17 pm

Another satisfied customer. Thanks.

How does a product get released with a problem like this? Or, as a colleague put it: “You had to get help to get Help?”

Comment from Adam
Time: March 26, 2007, 12:59 pm

Thanks the reg file worked perfectly! :)

Comment from Jon
Time: March 28, 2007, 8:46 pm

Thank you for the registry update. My hep works like the day before I bought my machine again. One would think that MSoft would have fixed this by now with a patch.

Comment from Anonymous
Time: March 30, 2007, 3:45 am

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks!

Comment from John Nicholls
Time: April 1, 2007, 10:30 pm

perfect. thanks a lot.

M$ are a right pain sometimes, but with Virtual PC 2007 and Acronis True Image Workstation 9.1 with Virtual Restore they’ve got a winner… my old XP machine is up and running as a virtual machine on completely different hardware.

Comment from Jon
Time: April 2, 2007, 9:14 am

this has been bugging me for a while, the registry fix worked a treat. thanks

Comment from Carl
Time: April 2, 2007, 7:45 pm

Excellent work.
Thank you so much. The registry update worked like a dream.

Comment from Paul K.
Time: April 5, 2007, 5:11 pm

Good work!

Comment from Tom S.
Time: April 6, 2007, 4:59 am

Fantastic! Thank you.

Comment from Ted
Time: April 6, 2007, 2:23 pm

Thank you so much. Why Microsoft did not fix the problem themselves? It took me ages to find this fix.

Comment from Keesh
Time: April 8, 2007, 3:55 pm

Thanks this solved it. Hopefully Microsoft releases an official fix soon.

Comment from Jen
Time: April 8, 2007, 8:29 pm

Thank you for the help. Worked like a charm.

Comment from Jason
Time: April 13, 2007, 12:09 am

Same here - did the trick nicely. Thanks heaps!

Comment from April
Time: August 2, 2007, 11:11 pm

For me too! It worked immediately. great job! Thank you very much

Comment from Rashy
Time: August 8, 2007, 5:21 pm

Thankyou Tony Northrup very much it worked for me tooo :D

Comment from Don
Time: August 13, 2007, 1:14 am

Worked for me… Thank you…

Comment from Waqar Mehrath
Time: August 13, 2007, 3:14 pm

this *.reg fix has solved my problem.
thanks.

Comment from Judy
Time: August 15, 2007, 8:40 am

Does this solution fixes all downloading problems? I have been having problems most files/programs from the internet. Most of the time the message i got said server has been reset. I got my friend to try download using his computer which is in XP, there have been no problems at all.
Pls help. It’s driving me crazy!
Thanks.

Comment from Robin
Time: September 7, 2007, 9:01 pm

Fixed my issue as well. Just bought a new PC with Vista and had no idea what was causing this. Luckily I found this fix. Thanks!!!

Comment from Marian
Time: September 8, 2007, 10:15 am

This has been bugging me for ages - have spent many hours trying to get the Vista Help and support page to load. Your fix worked just fine. Much appreciated. Thanks

Comment from Yogi
Time: October 4, 2007, 7:04 am

Thank you so much

Comment from Johan
Time: October 22, 2007, 8:09 pm

Today i fixed this incredible stupid issue on a brand new HP laptop with Vista Business installed. A shame that this is still not fixed by M$!

Thank you Tony for helping us poor Vista users out of the cold!

Comment from rod clarke
Time: October 25, 2007, 11:32 pm

that reg fix worked a bloody treat not even a restart required your a leg end.

cheers
rod

Comment from Mark
Time: November 10, 2007, 12:30 am

the reg fix worked a treat. I found another site/thread which seemed to indicate that Dreamweaver had caused the problem, and I have DW802 installed so that would not surprise me.

I think all of those folk whinging about Microsoft not fixing the issue might want to check all their installed non MS software for Vista support - Adobe don’t support Dreamweaver on Vista so why should MS take the rap for my choice to install un-supported software which changed the default xml registry info? Sometimes it’s too easy to blame MS when they have no control over what people stick on their PC.

Nor should we complain that Adobe don’t fix it - they clearly state that Dreamweaver 802 isn’t designed to run on Vista so it’s a case of caveat emptor (if that’s how you spell it).

Thanks for the fix!
Mark

Comment from Lisa
Time: November 23, 2007, 3:17 pm

After days of trying to figure out why I was having this problem I discovered your solution. Worked immediately! I recontacted Acer and let their techs know about this solution. Thank You so much!!!
PS-I to have Dreamweaver 8 installed, not sure if this is what initiated the problem.

Comment from javier
Time: December 1, 2007, 4:52 pm

thanks man, really helped me.

Comment from F_Rock
Time: December 10, 2007, 2:25 am

hey man, thx a lot it really worked and i got now the help and support center working, but….. there’s always a but…. when i go to help and when it is open the pics don’t come out, there aren’t pictures all with xxx and it looks like hell

Comment from iccle
Time: December 15, 2007, 4:45 pm

Awesome thanks, this has been driving me nuts, especially since im new to vista, and offline at home :(

Comment from memals
Time: December 19, 2007, 11:00 am

get the same error with outlook files but only with IE7, after the error outlook DOES open the file but get a further 3-4 repeats of the error. very odd.

Comment from William
Time: January 1, 2008, 3:32 am

Thank you, I was losing hair over this OS and you have helped me fix almost every issue. This sit is now one of my favs.

Comment from Rob
Time: January 13, 2008, 10:13 am

Nice one, thanks very much.
Rob

Comment from Jo
Time: January 26, 2008, 12:26 am

Oh my gosh - this was the first prompt that came up on a google search and it worked!

Thanks for your help

Comment from dream weaver
Time: January 30, 2008, 11:57 pm

hey guys

i also have DreamWeaver 8.02 on my Vista computer.

i see a trend here…

Comment from anon
Time: February 2, 2008, 12:37 pm

I am still facing the issue “Internet explorer cannot download a file”. None of the solution in this site has helped to fix the issue. I use IE7 and Vista home edition.
Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Comment from Katie F
Time: February 13, 2008, 6:20 pm

Thanks for that- Vista is brand new to me, and I was worried I’d managed to break it already!

Comment from Uri B.Y.
Time: February 20, 2008, 7:06 am

I don’t have Dreameaver installed but I have the same problem and can’t download any file using IE7 on Vista Ultimate after upgrading from XP. I checked my registry and all keys are as described. Any additional suggestion will greatly help before I downgrade back to XP.
Thanks

Comment from Mohammed Salloum
Time: February 20, 2008, 6:24 pm

When download from internet end, it disappears

Comment from Anonymous
Time: February 23, 2008, 1:59 pm

Thanks alot of the file,it really helped alot

Comment from Manny
Time: March 12, 2008, 10:49 am

Thank you very much for this fix! I’ve been experiencing this problem on an OEM installation of Vista Home Premium on my new laptop. Help never worked right straight out of the box! It’s working fine after applying your registry fix.

Thank you again!

Comment from Anonymous
Time: March 16, 2008, 6:38 pm

This has been bugging me since I installed Vista last year. The Fix was very much appreciated!

Comment from Abhishek
Time: March 27, 2008, 8:19 am

Thanks a lot for the fix. It worked for me.

Thanks a ton!!

Comment from Greg
Time: March 27, 2008, 3:18 pm

WOW! What a help!!! I just bought a brand new Toshiba and had the problem. Tech support had me disable all startup stuff, then had me “reset” Internet Explorer, and finally, the killer; they wanted me to reinstall windows (after I spend a week loading all my stuff!!!!
Needless to say, I said thanks and good bye.

Should have “googled” the problem first; silly me.
It worked like a charm.
Thanks soooooooooooooo much.

Comment from Bolaji
Time: April 9, 2008, 11:56 pm

Thanks so much for the fix. It worked immediately. appreciate it

Comment from Gert-Jan
Time: April 14, 2008, 8:16 am

thanks a lot for this, it was my only annoyance with vista so far and I’m glad it’s fixed.

Comment from jb1991
Time: April 23, 2008, 7:06 pm

Thanks, worked a treat!! It started to annoy me when I couldn’t get help and support for anything at all.

Glad it is all fixed now!!

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