Re: NT/Help Problems

Subject: Re: NT/Help Problems
From: "Marilyn Baldwin (mlbb -at- capgroup -dot- com)" <Marilyn_Baldwin -at- CAPGROUP -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 14:46:58 -0700

One more bit of info on this topic.
---------------------- Forwarded by Marilyn Baldwin/CDS/CG/CAPITAL on
05/28/98 02:39 PM ---------------------------

From: "Sargent; Mark" <Mark -dot- Sargent -at- transamerica -dot- com>
Subject: Re: NT/Help Problems

Quite simply, NT 3.51 allows you to do any bloody thing you please, if you
know how. Win95/NT4 are the ones that try to tie you in stupid knots with
idiotic animations and "user friendly"
forget-every-trick-you-ever-learned-because-none-of-the-keyboard-shortcuts-
are-the-same crap. Charlie's answer is right and wrong. The Winhelp API is
the one that calls WINHELP.EXE or WINHLP32.EXE: the only difference is
whether you compile to a 16-bit or 32-bit platform. Winhlp32 can handle
the WINHELP files. The next time 'round, it'll call IE, because all the
Help Files are being converted to HTML. And then you'll HAVE to have IE, so
take that, judge...

And "mixing 32-bit and 16-bit programs" is missing the key point: Win95 is
there just to prove that you need to update your Office Suite. Each 32-bit
app on Win95 or NT runs as its own address space, allowed as much as 2 GB
of virtual memory, but actually limited by real ram and your swap file. All
16-bit applications TOGETHER run in a single address space (called WOW, for
Windows On Windows), and one bad apple will kill the whole bunch (the same
as it was on Win 3.1). Some people are firmly convinced that WIn95 runs
faster, but I'd say that's because they normally are running it on a faster
machine, and confuse the horse with the rider. Most of the Office 97 stuff
is so damnably slow and bloated it's almost as bad as the early Win3.1
stuff.


--- Forwarded by Marilyn Baldwin/CDS/CG/CAPITAL on 05/28/98 10:32 AM ---

From: Charlie Munro
Subject: Re: NT/Help Problems

A word of caution here:

The problem of WinHelp 4 files not working with 16-bit applications on NT
has nothing to do with the file association, and changing this in the
registry is likely to lead to more problems down the road.

Quite simply, NT doesn't allow 16-bit applications to use WinHelp 4 files;
the OS protects itself from 16-bit applications by running them separately,
and forces them to use WinHelp.exe (WinHelp 3.1). This is very different
from Windows 95, which allows mixing of 16-bit and 32-bit programs.

See the WinHelp FAQ for more information.

Charlie Munro (mailto:cmunro -at- selsius -dot- com)
Selsius Systems (Dallas, TX)




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