CS4 Help files

I do not get any action on either the help button or with the F1 key. Any suggestions. Did I do something wrong during installation?

Yes, you're right Mike... It would be more comfortable to reach helps within applications.
In fact, I looked a bit to files and registry. And I found a way to do this. You can reach help subjects from application (Premiere Pro, After Effects e.t.c.) menus or pressing F1 key.
1) Open main help folder:
(C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help
2) Find and open your applications folder in your insallaion language
For Premiere Pro (English)
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\PremierePro\4.0
3) You'll find a text file named "helpmapBaseUrl.txt" in this folder. This text file has one line content, the url of the help file. And this url points the on-line help files at Adobe site. You can simply change this URL to point the help files in your hard disk.
For doing this, open this text file in notepad.
It has the line
"http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/4.0"
for Premiere Pro.
Change this line to:
"file:///C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\PremierePro\4.0\index.html"
(May be this forum page will separate long lines. Ignore it! You must write the path at one single line... There is no 'end-of-line' or carriage return. You can copy from above lines, without quotation marks of course.)
... and finally save this text file, overwriting original. It's done. Now you can use your F1 Key or menu for help files in Premiere.
That was for Premiere Pro. You can use same method for After Effects, Photoshop or Other CS4 applications.
For After Effects:
Fint the text file named "helpmapBaseUrl.txt" in folder:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\AfterEffects\9.0
Open this text file.
You'll see the original help url as "http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0"
Change this line to:
"file:///C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\AfterEffects\9.0\index.html"
(There is no end-of-line or carriage return again. Write all in single line. You can copy from above lines, without quotation marks of course.)
Save the text file overwriting original. It's done for After Effects.
You can reach every help subject on help menu instantly from your hard disk now.
I showed the way for Premiere Pro and After Effects. But you can use same method for other CS4 applications if you want.
One last note: I supposed your applications on standart "C:\Program Files" main folder. If it's not, you have to change the paths according your main installation path.

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    Message was edited by: trinaz

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    Message was edited by: trinaz

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