Credit: This fix was not discovered by me, I found it on the Microsoft discussion forum. The two folks in that discussion who seem to have discovered the fix for the problem are Chad Harris and Kristan Kenney.

When I tried to start Windows “Help And Support” (any help file for any native Windows program or feature) it would generate an error by Internet Explorer saying that it couldn’t download from “/”. This problem began occurring shortly after I installed Vista, so I’ve never really had access to any of Vista’s help files.

Thanks to the above folks it now works! Apparently the root of the problem is that the XML file type needs to be associated with Help And Support.

To stop Help And Support from trying to force Internet Explorer to download from “/” you will need to do a quick registry fix. This is quick and simple. I just used it and it works perfectly.

Open Notepad, make sure the text box is completely empty, and then paste the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xml]
“Content Type”=”text/xml”

Save that file to your desktop as fixhelp.reg. It can be named anything, but it must end in .reg (”dot reg”).

Double click on that file then choose the option to add it to your system registry. The moment that this process is complete you should be able to use your Windows Help And Support again. ;D

G’day folks,
~Steph