RE: WinHelp on Vista - a useful link

["sbuckley" <sbuckley -at- onlinewriter -dot- com>]

Apologies for resurrecting this e-mail thread for those who have already
moved on, but I thought a good link to information on the subject would be
helpful. Also, my last understanding was that WinHelp would be supported for
Vista, but in a lower priority. I thought that meant no bug fixes, but it
seems to be mean more (i.e., a download will be needed).

I prefer this MSDN link for information on Vista.  Please be aware that most
MSDN links are available to the public. Let me know if you have problems
accessing the following information.

Click the following link
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnlong/html
/AppComp.asp . At "The Windows Vista Developer Story: Application
Compatibility Cookbook" page, under "Contents", click the "Help Engine
Support" link. It's one of the last links under "Contents."

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sbuckley=onlinewriter -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sbuckley=onlinewriter -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Mike Starr
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 7:59 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: WinHelp on Vista

> From: "Bill Swallow" <techcommdood -at- gmail -dot- com>
> Subject: Re: WinHelp on Vista
>
>> "Clear"? MS has already changed their official position several times on
>> this matter. Maybe the download will be canceled or be too kludgy. Or
>> maybe it'll worktechwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
fine, and MS will let third parties distribute it.
>
> MS never changed their position, rather they finally made a decision
> on what to do. I believe their official position has always been to
> drop WinHelp support since it relies on old technology that would hold
> Vista and future OSes back. Their last decision (which seems to be a
> final decision) is to allow for legacy WinHelp support via a download.
> Also, it's my understanding that they needed to make some changes to
> the WinHelp engine in order for it to properly function in Vista.
>
> Let's face it, although it is solid, WinHelp is an old technology. At
> some point it needs to be put to bed to promote technological
> advancement within the Windows OS, among OS-friendly applications, and
> of course within the community that authors user assistance for those
> applications.

WinHelp may be OLD technology but as far as I'm concerned, it's still 
superior to the "NEW" technology. CHM help has never come close to 
delivering a help product that provides any advance over WinHelp. I 
don't have to implement any kluges to get WinHelp to provide formatted 
popups and it always works no matter what version of Windows my users 
have. It doesn't fail based on the user's version of Internet Explorer 
and it doesn't fail depending on networking security issues.

I'd venture a guess that with InstallShield or something similar I can 
invoke a download of the WinHelp engine for Vista as part of the 
install process.

<charlton heston>I'm sticking with WinHelp until they pry it from my 
cold, dead hands. </charlton heston>
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