Re: I'm sticking with WinHelp (was Re: WinHelp on Vista - a
...as mentioned in previous messages, there is a huge legacy out there. The developers and the companies who created much of that legacy are no longer around. So updates or ports are just not a question.
Times change, companies change.... Sure there is a huge base of legacy systems out there, but complaining about Vista and WinHelp's compatibility problem will not push Microsoft to include it in Vista. As some point in time, those old systems will either have to be replaced, or the owners will have to accept the fact that you cannot provide updates to Help on those systems, or you're R&D boys will have to figure a way around the roadblock and produce a product that will make lots of money for your company until all those systems finally die.
With backward compatibility broken, people running such systems will have to think carefully before moving forward to Vista. If the break in backward compatibility for WinHelp is anything to go by then people wanting to move to Vista may find themselves in a position where they must "rip-and-replace" legacy systems.
People had to think carefully about moving from WIndows 98SE to XP. A lot of things didn't work after that move, but they moved anyway.
I am not for this. Many of these systems are working just fine and do the job exactly as required.
Then why change them, just accept the fact that you will no longer be able to supply context sensitive Help to those systems until someone figures out a different way of doing things.
The second part of legacy is in exiting documentation departments. Many of which have huge documentation sets spanning back several versions. The documentation for this legacy remains valuable as customers are still running the system and versions for which the documentation was developed.Why is this a problem? Nobody says you have to get rid of old documentation.
Forcing software vendors or users to just accept that there would be no backward compatability is a common practice with Microsoft. We are locked-in to whatever they decide and I think it is about time that we developed an open source, standards-based help viewer system under GNU-GPL. I think we need to end, once and for all, the domination of one company over the help viewer market.
Microsoft (and I am not a MS lover) is not alone in dropping backward compatibility. Apple used to make everything backward compatible to the Mac Classic and then figured out it was holding them back. I ran a Mac/PC sales/service center at the time and you would not believe how many people were mad at Apple and threatened never to buy one again. That lasted for a couple months, then I noticed some of our most vocal Mac Classic owners buying new G3s or IMacs and absolutely loving their new machines. The key is whether Microsoft, or some tool vendor, figures out a way to create context sensitive Help on Vista systems. Once that is done, someone else will figure out how to quickly convert those old WinHelp files to the new format. Will is cost time and money....you betcha, but that money doesn't necessarily have to go to Microsoft. It can go to the new company that figures out the way to update legacy systems to the new OS. If it's an open-source system, then that's even better.
Al
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References:
RE: I'm sticking with WinHelp (was Re: WinHelp on Vista - a: From: Mike Hamilton
Re: I'm sticking with WinHelp (was Re: WinHelp on Vista - a: From: Sean Wheller
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