Microsoft Help Viewer 2.0 doesn't work behind proxy

Question

The issue:

Help viewer is not able to fetch help catalog or to download picked items due to the proxy authentication error.

Answer 1

This happens because because the Help Content Manager and BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) cannot fetch help data from Microsoft servers. Both Help Content Manager and BITS don't use default proxy credentials when connecting to Microsoft servers.

Fix:

Locate help viewer configuration at

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Help Viewer\v2.0\HlpViewer.exe.config

Edit the configuration file and add following to the configuration section:

<system.net>    
    <defaultProxy useDefaultCredentials="true" >    
    </defaultProxy> 
</system.net> 

Now, in the same folder, create configuration for content manager:

HlpCtntMgr.exe.config

and add the same proxy settings to the configuration section.

Open registry editor and locate following node:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BITS\ 

Make sure UseLMCompat value is present and it's set to 0. If the value is missing create it as a DWORD value.

Close the registry editor and restart Background Intelligent Transfer Service.