Viewing the Product Help

To view the documentation installed with your product:

  1. Start Visual Studio.
  2. Ensure that the Visual Studio Help Library is pointing to local help - from the Visual Studio menu click Help > Set Help Preferences > Launch in Help Browser.
  3. Click Help > View Help.

    This opens the product help in Microsoft's Help Viewer.

For full details of the Visual Studio Help system, see the MSDN.

If, after Visual COBOL was installed, you do not see its product help in the Help Viewer, you need to install the documentation manually as follows:

  1. In Visual Studio 2017, ensure the Visual Studio Help Viewer is installed.

    See Installing missing components of Visual Studio 2017 in Software Requirements for instructions on how to install it.

  2. Start Visual Studio.
  3. Click Help > Add and Remove Content.

    This starts the Microsoft Help Viewer.

  4. Click the Manage Content tab and click Disk.
  5. Click the browse button next to Disk and navigate to the %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Micro Focus\Visual COBOL\Help folder.
  6. Select helpcontentsetup.msha and click Open.

    This loads the Visual COBOL documentation.

  7. Click Add and then Update.

    After the installation is complete, the Visual COBOL product Help appears in the Help Viewer.

Note: On some Windows versions such as Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, an issue with Microsoft Help Viewer and Internet Explorer's security being turned on can cause the Help content to be displayed as raw HTML code. To resolve the issue, you need to turn off the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC) for both administrators and users. Check the Microsoft Windows help for more information on how to do this.