Installation & Licensing

[#1]

I've installed Civil 3D 2012 twice (original install and a reinstall) and both times it has failed to load any Autocad help files.  When I press F1 I get the message "Cannot find help file: acad.chm."  That file isn't found on my machine anywhere, but also, when I navigate to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012\Help there are only 5 different help files.  The same path but for my 2011 installation has 99 different help files.  

Any ideas?  Thanks.

[#2]

If you goto the options, does your Help and Misc files indicate a proper path?

[#3]

My help path is set to "Civil_2012.chm" but the file does not exist.  I can't change it to the index.html file that your screenshot shows.   My only choices are chm, hlp, and bin files.  See my screenshot.  Thanks.

[#4]

Any other ideas?  Thanks.

[#5]

Hi,

Did you install from a network deployment or from media? You can browse to the location on either the media or deployment AdminImage and copy the file locally:

Deployment:

<ServerPath>\AdminImage\x64\en-US\C3D\Civil\Program Files\Root\Help

Media:

c:\Autodesk\AutoCAD_Civil3D_2012_English_Win_64bit\x64\en-US\C3D\Civil\Program Files\Root\Help

From the Media location, you can copy the file, C3D2012Help.zip to the install location and unzip it. Also copy the other zip files if they are missing from the installed product. Unzip them to:

c:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012\Help

The Help files for Civil 3D are online at:

http://docs.autodesk.com/CIV3D/2012/ENU/landing.html

and this might be a more helpful location to find the information.

I hope this helps.

-Alison

[#6]

No, this is a stand-alone installation.   And no offense, but nothing's easier than just hitting F1 and getting the help screen.  

[#7]

Hi,

I appologize for not fully answering the question. The default path in this location in the Options is:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012\Help\Index.html

The default location listed to access the Help is located in the Registry at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.2\ACAD-A000:409

"HelpBaseURL"=http://docs.autodesk.com

All the Help is located Online in the 2012 release. You will find some addition information on locations where Civil 3D 2012 Help can be accessed at the following discussion thread:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Civil-3D/Help-Files-2012/td-p/3004028

Thanks,

Alison

[#8]

Okay, I may have been a little bit confused when I first posted because, like my previous post said, my help path (after installation) is set to "Civil_2012.chm" so that made me think that I'm looking for chm (help) files. I guess it finally hit me that perhaps Autodesk isn't using the chm files anymore?  As I stated before, my 2011 (and all previous installs that I can remember) use chm files.  My 2012 install did not load many chm files, so when I first posted that my 2012 install didn't load any help files, I literally meant that it does not load any help (chm) files.  So now I understand that it's not supposed to as apparently the new help path should be set to index.html, which I have, yet when I manually edit the help path to reference the index.html file I still get no help screen after pressing the F1 key.  I don't receive any errors and get no notifications in my command line.  Maybe this will help to clear up what my problem is.  Thanks.

Also, my registry key is intact.  

[#9]

Thanks for providing this additional information. You can open the Options dialog, click on the System tab and uncheck the option, "Use Online help from Autodesk website when available" under the Help section in the lower right corner. This will redirect the Help to the local HTML files in the C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012\Help directory.

Also, are you able to access the help using F1 if you are logged on as another user? What browser are you using?

Thanks,

Alison

[#10]

I don't have that option in my system tab.  See my screenshot.  And I have three browsers: IE, Firefox, and Chrome.  Chrome is my day-to-day browser.  I know Autocad prefers IE but again, after changing my help path to the html file, I still get nothing.  If IE should be opening then I guess I'm having major problems.  And this is my third installation (1 original and 2 re-installs).