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Tim Green · 24 Jun 2002

Report from the WinWritersUA 2006 conference: Microsoft has officially announced that Windows Vista will not include support for WinHelp. These means that everyone who wants their help to work in Vista needs to start thinking about converting it to another format like HTML Help or Browser-based Help.

Source and update, 15 April 2006:
This news was reported on the Yahoo HATT mailing list by several people attending the WinWriters conference in Palm Springs. It appears to have been confirmed by Microsoft representatives, who have now stated categorically both that WinHelp support will not be included in Windows Vista and that it will not be possible to download or post-install WinHelp support for Vista. It appears that the reference provided in the link further down in this thread by Pete Lees is now out of date and has been superseded by these new policy decisions at Microsoft.

Van Swofford · 05 Feb 2004

Hi Tim,

Do you know if there are any 3rd party WinHelp readers available that could be distributed with an application? I'd really prefer to switch to HTML Help, but it's crippled in a network environment in such a way that I can't expect it to work reliably on my user's networks, and the solutions require working with system configuration, which I can't expect my users to do.

Cheers!
Van

Pete Lees · 21 Mar 2003

Tim,

Just to clarify this, out-of-the-box Vista won't come with the WinHelp viewer, but users will be able to download the required components from the Microsoft site and view their WinHelp files as before. There is a statement to this effect in the following MSDN page:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnlong/html/AppComp.asp?frame=true#app_topic12

Pete

Tim Green · 24 Jun 2002

Van,

No, there are no alternative WinHelp viewers -- well, none that work. I've seen a couple of Russian solutions that work on both Windows and Linux (with different viewer programs) but the results are really not anywhere near good enough to use.

To get HTML Help to work on networks you could distribute a little "installation" file that only makes the necessary registry entries, then the users don't have to edit the registry themselves. Your "installer" could also install shortcuts for opening the help etc. to round it off. If you only allow the specific folder containing the CHM or even just the specific CHM it also doesn't create a security risk.

The other alternative is Browser-based Help, which is just as easy to generate with H&M. I know that some users still don't like the idea of a directory full of files but they're just going to have to get used to it -- from what I've seen of Vista Help it's not going to be a viable alternative for a couple of years yet. (It almost certainly isn't going to be released as a general help format in the initial version of Vista.)

It also remains to be seen whether Vista is going to be a success at all. So far Microsoft hasn't managed to provide much in the way of convincing reasons for an update and most of the really interesting new features have already been taken out because they couldn't be finished on time.

Tim Green · 24 Jun 2002

Pete,

Pete Lees wrote:

Just to clarify this, out-of-the-box Vista won't come with the WinHelp viewer, but users will be able to download the required components from the Microsoft site and view their WinHelp files as before.

Thanks for clarifying this! One of the reports I saw from the conference said specifically that NO download viewer or driver would be available for Vista -- everything still seems to be very much up in the air.

Anyway, even if Vista is released in January (which I rather doubt) it will be some time before help for applications in Vista really becomes an issue. I expect Vista adoption to be even slower than it was initially for XP.

Tim Green · 24 Jun 2002

Update:

I've now done a little bit more research and with the help of some additional information from Alexander it seems that both things are true: Yes, Microsoft will probably provide download support for WinHelp in Vista, but if native support is really removed from Vista it probably won't really help. It will only be possible to view WinHelp files under Vista, calls to .HLP files from applications will no longer work.

The problem appears to be that the WinHelp API (application programming interface) is integrated directly in the Win32 instruction set, which means that it is deeply integrated in the operating system itself. The basic background of this function is explained on this page on the MSDN website.

If our assumptions are correct the download package from Microsoft will not integrate the WinHelp API in the operating system -- they are hardly likely to upgrade Vista for full OS-level WinHelp functionality after it has been officially removed. If this is the case then users will only be able to view WinHelp on Vista. Calls to the API from the application will no longer work, because they require the low-level Win32 integration which will no longer be there. This would mean that all context-sensitive help features of WinHelp would be disabled -- it would effectively be a viewer-only application, just like an eBook.

The situation is different for HTML Help. This has always been implemented with an external DLL with an external API, so the issue of deep intgration in the OS does not arise there.

Tim Green · 24 Jun 2002

Final update:

It seems that Pete's information was out of date. The news from Microsoft at the moment is that WinHelp support will not be included in Vista and there will be no downloadable support or viewer for WinHelp available for Vista. The information on the linked MSDN page is out of date and has been superseded by the recent MS policy decisions.

So WinHelp is gone -- at least until the next policy change between now and the eventual release of Windows Vista, whenever that may be. Currently this is supposed to be in January 2007 but personally I'm not going to believe this until I see it... Twisted Evil

Joseph_K · 15 Jul 2006

This KB article, dated June 27, suggests that a download will be available, but it may be based on the old information already mentioned.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607

I wish MS would explicitely state what their intentions are and, if a Winhelp download is available, what functionality it will have.

HTML Help is an unfinished buggy product that doesn't even come close to meeting our product requirements. And as you say... AP help... God knows when or what will be available.

Just another reason to hate MS.

Martin Wynne · 12 May 2003

Joseph_K wrote:

I wish MS would explicitely state what their intentions are and, if a Winhelp download
is available, what functionality it will have.

Could this security bug be the reason they are killing the 32-bit WinHelp viewer,
but apparently allowing the old 16-bit viewer to continue and including it with Vista?

http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/25573

There are other 3rd party viewers for .hlp files -- e.g. HelpExplorer3:

http://www.kamasoftware.com/helpexplorer.php

Martin.

Tim Green · 24 Jun 2002

Joseph, Martin,

That's interesting about the vulnerability but I'm sure that's not the reason for killing WinHelp, that would probably have been quite fixable when porting to Vista.

As far as I understand it, the problem with adding WinHelp support retroactively is that unlike HTML Help, WinHelp's API depends on system calls that must be part of the Windows kernel and the programmers I've talked to say they can't see any way to retroactively install that. So it's quite likely that any downloadable solutions will just provide "read-only" support, without any system calls -- essentially turning WinHelp into a kind of Stone Age PDF. One way or another, I really wouldn't depend on WinHelp being fully functional in Vista. Chances are it won't be.

There are other 3rd party viewers for .hlp files -- e.g. HelpExplorer3:

The problem with all these alternatives is that any replacement for something like the WinHelp or HTML Help viewer either works or it doesn't, there's nothing in between. If it's not 100% perfect it's essentially useless. HelpExplorer3 is an impressive piece of programming, but it doesn't come close to being a viable replacement for the native WinHelp environment and API. I think we really have to just accept that WinHelp is dead.