LE> I opened a 4OS2 window and typed HELPMSG 0. I got "no help available"
 LE> message. And OSO001.MSG is in the directory.

Type

        [c:\]dpath

If your DPATH environment variable does not include C:\OS2\SYSTEM, then that
is your problem.

 LE> BTW, this is happening when I try to use COMP to compare files. :-(

Both the COMP command supplied with OS/2 and the OS2CLU COMP utility use
message files for the messages that they display.  They will both have
problems if the message files aren't locatable.  (The OS2CLU COMP command will 
compare commands, and will display the results of the comparison as best it
can without the actual message text to work from.  The COMP command supplied
with OS/2 will just refuse to run at all.)  The message files won't be
locatable if you have messed up your DPATH environment variable.  

 ¯ JdeBP ®

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