For sometime I have been using Visual Studio 6 SP5 with MSDN Library Jan2002 on a XP operating system, with no problems. Yesterday I uninstalled the MSDN Library Jan2002 (disk space limitations) and installed the MSDN Library Jan2003. The installation appeared to complete OK. Unfortunately however, when selecting help from the menu bar or by pressing F1, I now get the message: "The MSDN collection does exist. Please reinstall MSDN". I have of course, tried to reinstall MSDN Jan2003 several times but always end up with the same error!

I’d be very grateful if someone could help resolve this issue?

Many thanks

William

You know, this same sort of thing has happened to me as well...

I think that if you don't install the MSDN collection as a part of the main program installation, something goes haywire... especially if you 'uninstall' something in the process.

Sorry, no advice here, just co-miseration....

Tim

Hi Tim,

I have since found out that the MSDN Library changed format sometime around the beginning of 2002. This new format is incompatible with MSVS and will only work with .NET.

There seems to be no problem having both formats on a machine: MSVS will launch the old MSDN while the new format must be launched manually.

Hope this helps?

Cheers

William

Appreciate the info.

Tim

I have been having the same problem with loading the MSDN for Visual Basic 6 with the initial setup. I followed the documentation and loaded the visual basic program first. I rebooted my machine and was then prompted to setup the MSDN library by inserting disk 1. But then it doesn't recognize the disk. I tried the other 2 disks that were included with the suite. But it would not recognize these either. I tried loading this on my work laptop running Windows 2000 professional and on my home laptop running windows XP with no luck.

Help.

Signed,
Frustrated.

I came upon this thread by googling for this problem, and later I found the following Microsoft KB article, which says it all:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;307189

"As of the January 2002 edition of the MSDN Library, the Library no longer integrates into the Visual Studio 6.0 integrated development environment (IDE)."

Note that the "good" MSDN installers put some settings into the registry which make Visual Studio 6.0 find their collections. Check here for more info and some troubleshooting tips:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;216109