"Automation server can't create object" error

[kreed4]

We are using RH6 to generate Webhelp with option: No Java Applet, DHTML > Pure HTML.

Installed the resulting help files on a server at a customer site. The help works fine when called up from one networked client PC, but on another an error occurs and the table of contents fails to populate. The error is reported as "Automation server can't create object", and the URL is reported as the file whskin_pdhtml.htm

Both clients are running Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4. Both are running the same version of IE 6, specifically 6.0.2800.1106C0

The "security" and "advanced" options in IE 6 are configured exactly the same with two exceptions:

1. The one where it works is set to "empty temporary internet files when browser is closed", the failing client is not. I would suspect this is irrelevant.

2. On the client that works, when I view the security configuration, the first item in the list is "Permissions for components with manifests", which is set to "High". On the failing client, this configuration entry does not appear at all. Possibly this is a clue that the failing client is missing some Microsoft component/feature that is required in order to be able to display the text list that is the table of contents?


I understand that W2K and IE 6 are "obsolete", but nevertheless my hope is to generate help screens that my various customer sites can run reliably on their current Windows PCs.

Can you offer any helpful insight as to why this failure is occurring, or how to get past it?

Thanks

[kreed4]

We downloaded a trial version of RH 7 and used it to generate the help files, but the output produced by RH 7 contained the same bug as RH 6.

We contacted Adobe support but they had no insight regarding this problem. (Actually, they suggested we contact Microsoft to ask Microsoft why Adobe's HTML does not work.)

We downloaded a trial version of Doc-To-Help and found that it successfully imports the RH project and produces output that runs reliably on the same systems where the RH output bombs off. (Plus, the Doc-To-Help output contains some other nice features that the RH output does not.)

So, we settled on the solution of using Doc-To-Help rather than RoboHelp.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Can you please expound on what the features were that DTH offered that RoboHelp didn't?

Cheers... Rick

[kreed4]

Hi Rick,

Not sure I know enough terminology to express this clearly and concisely, but the two features we like in the output are:

The DTH output automatically produces "breadcrumbs"

With a hierarchical table of contents, DTH automatically produces the page to display when the user clicks on an upper-level topic, whereas we were manually building that page for RH