Forum Discussion
Office 2021 Help system not working
I have Office 2021 Home and Student, fully updated. In Excel, clicking Help, on the toolbar, then on the button labeled ?, a message "Sorry, something went wrong. Please check your network connection..." is displayed in the Help dialog box. But, Help works in Word and in PowerPoint . I assume that this is a registry issue. Any ideas?
1 Reply
1. Restart Office applications
Close all Office programmes (Word/Excel etc.)
Re-open to test the F1 Help function
2. Check that the Help file exists
Open File Explorer and go to:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\vfs\ ProgramFilesCommonX64\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\
Confirm the existence of the "OfficeHelp" folder
3. Repair Office 2021 installation
Control Panel → Programs and Features
Locate Microsoft Office 2021 → Click on "Change"
Select "Quick Fix" → Wait for it to finish. Wait for it to complete and restart your computer
4. Reset the Office Help settings
Close all Office programmes
Delete this registry entry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Help
(can be found and deleted by running regedit)
5. Ensure that you can access the Microsoft Help server Microsoft Help Server
Test that the following link opens:
https://support.microsoft.com
If using a proxy/VPN, try turning it off and testing it
6. Completely reinstall Office 2021
Uninstall Office via Control Panel
Rerun the installer
