Constructed -- actually, I think, copied & pasted-- my .BAT file from instructions I got here (maybe from you).Years ago!

PMail and its thumb drive have gone all over the USA and Canada with me -- on several Windows laptops --with no major problems, and at home regularly brings me mail as I switch between the  desktop and the Surface and now the laptop I got when the desktop (win7, bless it) went into a decline and finally became unbootable. Gotta love a program like that!

 What I was wondering about was whether the fact that I was attempting to run the various help executables from the thumb drive conflicted with wherever Windows thought they should run from. Given how intrusive Win 10 is.

 One thing, a vital Passport (brand new) drive with all the data I could rescue from the desktop drives went nuts -- "can't acess disk/file/etc because of fatal hardware error" -- with moments of usability as I changed cables, moved it from one slot on the powered hub, etc. As the Passports are seen as hard drives and the bulky ones often won't read when plugged into a hub, I put the Passport into the one free port on the laptop and it's fine.  I also had it on kind of a long cable and the 2nd Passport, on the supplied cable, has never had a problem. Plugging the thumb drive directly into the laptop didn't do a thing for the disappearing help problem but it might be a question to ask, given the complaints about the current hubs failing -- sometimes slot by slot.y

 Thanks for all your help and encouragement. Now that the problem with the search results folders refusing to go away on exit, I may not need PMail's help for another 5 years so I'm not going to worry about it!

@echo off
start %drive%\PMAIL\Programs\winpm-32.exe -roam -a -ms -i (myname)
exit

I'm running Pegasus from a SanDisk Ultra thumb drive, same one for a long time, but on a new (as of several weeks ago) Lenovo thinkpad (to tide me over while my desktop PC is being resurrected) and all of a sudden the help screen comes up blank no matter which item on the "help" list I click on. This is kind of drastic because I have to come here and bother people for every problem I can't figure out how to fix.

I suspect this has to do with a Win 10 update though as we're no longer given any control or information (such as "last update") I can't be sure. I did install the latest build of Pegasus as an update, to no avail. 

All suggestions welcomed. The other problem, failure of the Search Results folders to delete on exit, predates the help(less) problem -- not sure by how long.

Uh, restart & turn off computer didn't help and neither did removing the UltraFit and putting it back.

TIA

 molly

Post (also) to the list

Does help work for other apps ?

Search for file Winhlp32.exe in File Explorer.  When you find it, set up a shortcut and place the shortcut in your desktop folder for access.  There are so many locations in the different versions of Windows, so there isn't a common location. When searching for a Help file, try to find a Filename.CHM, as this is the current common naming.  There are actually two new naming conventions but I will not confuse you with them for now.

See: http://community.pmail.com/forums/50363/ShowThread.aspx#50363 

Martin 

Tried every program I could think of that I use regularly and help was fine in all.

um, MS says Winhlp32.exe isn't supported in Windows 10. I did an Ultra File Search search on .CHM and nothing that seems Pegasus-related comes up among the 88 .CHM files UFS found. It found NO .HSX files. UFS searches hidden and system files so I believe the results.

I forgot to mention that the blank window comes up in back of the main program screen, as seen from the taskbar.

According to the latest Pegasus Mail version (4.7) the help is invoked with: 

 C:\PMAIL\Programs\wshowhelp.exe winpm-32.phc  So you can create a shortcut with this information

Martin 

Possibly the reason that none of these suggestions work is that I'm running PMail from a USB memory stick or whatever they're called these days -- a Sandisk UltraFit, anyway.

.PHC asks for location "on this PC" which seems to include all the USB drives, but when I told Win 10 where to find the file the run window just disappeared. Same with showHelp.exe, Win 10 says ok to make changes to device (I tried this with a slightly older copy on another stick before I said yes) but nothing happens then either. Had to use "run as administrator" before anything whatever happened.

 What I'm having trouble understanding is that the help system was working fine until quite recently -- when I first started trying to figure out why the search results folder wasn't deleting itself on exit, which was only after the folders started piling up...  and that glitch has now resolved itself! I keep hoping this one will, too -- seldom as I actually need help from help after all these years.

m

[quote user="mollym"]

Possibly the reason that none of these suggestions work is that I'm running PMail from a USB memory stick or whatever they're called these days -- a Sandisk UltraFit, anyway.[/quote]

Are you calling Pegasus Mail with the -ROAM command line option?

The help system of v4.73 will indeed work from within Pegasus Mail when run from a usb devixe.  I run an instance from a Transcend thumb drive on which the help content works fine whether run on a Win7 or Win10 1909 machine.  So the question is why isn't it working.

You will want to confirm that Martin's command suggestion works.

I would then look at the command line you are using to start Pegasus Mail.  I start mine from a batch file with a command line of:

start %drive%\PMAIL\Programs\winpm-32.exe -roam -a -ms -i username

I do this because I use my thumb drive on numerous machines and this approach allows me to run the batch file from whatever drive letter is assigned by the machine.