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I have used RoboHelp for years and we have just purchased new laptops with Windows 7, we are finding that it appears that RoboHelp 8 will not run on Windows 7.
The software appears unstable as even the simplest action crashes RoboHelp, the Event Log shows:
Can anyone help with how to resolve this issue?
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Hi Duncan and welcome to the RH community.
You don't say whether you are on the 32 bit or 64 bit version of Windows 7. Only the 32 bit version is officially supported although others are running RH8 and the 64 bit version of Windows 7 successfully. Check that you have all the RH8 updates installed. These can be found here. Also do not ahve your RH projects on a network drive.
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Hi Colum
Thanks for the reply to my forum posting.
I am currently running a 32 bit version and the project files are located on the hard drive not over a network.
All the updates to RoboHelp are installed.
There was no issue when I ran RoboHelp 8 on XP, however since we have purchased new hardware/Windows 7 we are finding RoboHelp very unstable and it is getting to the point of our company looking for alternative products.
Any further help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Duncan
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Are you experiencing issues with completely new projects as well as legacy ones? If not, try renaming the legacy project's .CPD file before opening it. If the problem is with all projects, check that the laptops anti-virus software isn't interfering in any way. There have been occasional posts here where this is the case and with new laptops this maybe the case.
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Hi Colum
Yes we have issues with both new and legacy projects.
I will try running the projects whilst not connected to the internet with the virus protection off.
Thanks again for the advice.
Duncan
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Let us know what occurs. If you use RoboSourceControl you could try seeing if that is the issue as well. Perhaps seeing if a completely stand alone project managed by one author and not in source control has the same issues. I'm assuming that there is no rhyme or reason to the crashes (i.e. it isn't something that occurs every time you add a table or create a topic.
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Colum
We are not using RoboSource Control we are simply running the project from a single PC. RoboHelp crashes for no reason at all, you can simply be hovering over a menu item and it crashes - very frustrating
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Duncan, did you (or anybody elese who's reading this!) even find out why RH8 was crashing under Windows 7? I've had RH 8.0.2.208 installed in a new Dell laptop running Windows 7 Enterprise for over a week now. Unfortunately there are frequent crashes. It's not at the point of unusability, but it it a major pain.
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No Adobe have not found a solution to the problem with running RoboHelp 8 on Windows.
They have had numerous suggestions, from running registry cleaners, creating new user profile, but none work. In fact at times you literally need to just 'touch' RoboHelp and it crashes.
It is extremely frustrating as a substantial amount of our company business is the creation, hosting and updating of content prepared using RoboHelp.
The only way I have found to run RoboHelp is to install 'Windows XP mode' as a virtual environment.
I live in hope of a solution!
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I suspect the reason Adobe haven't found a solution is they are not looking for one as RoboHelp 8 is working fine on Windows 7 32 bit. I'm reply from such a machine, incidentally a Dell laptop.
RoboHelp 8 on 32 bit is supported so if you cannot resolve this by uninstalling and reinstalling, I can only suggest you take it up with Adobe. It is working for most people.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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A colleague who's using RH8 on WIn 7 (without crashes) has just suggested going to Tools > Options > General tab and checking the box for Clear project cahe (.cpd file) before opening any project - I'll give it a try and see if it cures the problem.
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Colum suggested deleting the CPD earlier in the thread.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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Thanks for that. We have the 'delete CPD' option ticked and RoboHelp still crashes.
It just seems RoboHelp is unstable on Windows 7. We are using the 32-bit operating system.
The only way forward I can see is to look for an alternative to RoboHelp
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Given that this is not typical, the cause seems more likely to be your environment or the project, either of which might also impact another tool.
Are you able to try on a Windows 7 machine off site?
You say the problem is with new and legacy projects. Have you also tried the supplied samples?
You will find the samples at
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 8\RoboHTML\Samples\en_US
or
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2\Adobe RoboHelp 8\RoboHTML\Samples\en_US
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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I have tried open one of the 'sample projects' and yet again RoboHelp crashes as soon as you do a minor thing like hover over a menu item.
We tried creating new projects as well as opening existing projects - again CRASH!
Dell have replaced hardware on this laptop, disabled hardware all of which still result in RoboHelp crashing.
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I'm sorry but I really do think the problem is with your machine or the environment. That is the only time I normally see anyone report problems with the sample projects.
It seems unlikely that Dell would replace hardware just because one piece of software is failing. Is there some other information not shared so far?
I cannot see that you have tried a simple uninstall and reinstall, has that been tried? Was RH installed by someone with local admin rights? That is essential.
Have you tried right clicking the RH shortcut and selecting Run As Administrator?
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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Yes we have tried the 'simple uninstall and reinstall' all of which are performed as Administrator and we have tried right clicking and running as Administrator.
We have even reinstall Windows, installed just RoboHelp and RoboHelp crashes.
Dell replaced the hardware as original Windows Explorer was crashing and Dell felt confident that a new hard drive would fix the fault. It did not and when they looked into the event logs for the Explorer crash they found a software conflict which appears to be RoboHelp - since removing RoboHelp, Windows Explorer does not crash.
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You may have covered this but I haven't looked back through the thread and it's late here so I'm skipping that. Have you tried working whilst disconnected from the network?
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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We work on the files locally, not over a network and we are not using Source Control.
I have noticed if I run the 'Program Compatibility' for RoboHelp it reports that 'RoboHTML is incompatible'.
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Yes I know you work on the files locally. My point was to try working whilst disconnected from the network. Not the same thing.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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We do not connect to a network to work on the files, all work is done locally.
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Hi Duncan
Peter is well aware that you are working on the files locally. What he is asking if you have tried disconnecting your computer from the network and trying to work. See if you are able to sever the connection (usually by disconnecting the LAN cable from the network card) and see if that makes a difference in the behavior of RoboHelp. Does it still crash if you do this? Does it even start up? What is the behavior?
The thing is, we are finding ourselves in somewhat uncharted waters with your particular setup. Personally, I'm using Windows 7 64 bit and RoboHelp 8 works just fine most of the time. It's crashed on me once or twice, but that doesn't surprise me much as I always am running gobs of applications and very seldom reboot the computer.
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7 or 8 moments from now - $24.95! |
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Errrr...I believe Peter is suggesting that working locally but connected to the network might be causing a buildup of network sewer gases to impact your situation.
I would agree with his earlier statement about your environment, and would suggest you look to what your IT peeps are doing. Have they set up My Documents as a "virtual" folder actually on the network, or some other ghastly command and control functionality? Have they set up anti-virus chaos? You might ask them to either turn the A/V off as a test, or filter the RH folders out of contention. One of our least tech-savvy writers got a new Windows 7 box (not a laptop) the other day, and is experiencing no problems of this type, with either RH or IE.
Good luck,
Leon
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Thanks Rick and Leon, that is exactly what I was suggesting - yanking the network cable out to see if the files can still be accessed or if some other gremlin suddenly cannot wreak havoc.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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There is no network involved here, the lapotop is not connected to a VPN/network, it runs completely stand alone.