Help And Manual was a big help this weekend

I'm not running Vista yet ... yeah I know... I've got it, I just haven't had the grand desire to go through the pain and suffering of repaving my system yet. I keep hoping the 'computer fairy' will drop off a new PC at the house and I can install it and all the other crappola I have installed on the new one while the current one is still running for all those things I forget :)

So when I started teaching a class for UOP named "Programming Concepts" last week, I had a couple people have trouble right off the bat with the simple little C compiler we use and Vista. Particularly the help files. My thought is "ok, what's going on here, it CAN'T be a big deal to run help files, so maybe there's something in the UI that's keeping it from launching them."

So I posted the .HLP files and umm... those didn't work. Ok so I put the .HLP files on my website, and of course that didn't work either.

That's about when I was clued into the fact that Vista doesn't like .HLP or .CHM files ... wow... there's a lot of apps out there that people are going to have trouble with help then!

I then brought up Help and Manual, and without reading anything (hey, I write software for a living... do I read manuals?), I was able to create a project, extract the individual files from the .HLP files and produce a couple folders of html files on my site with indices to open each that look *just* like the .HLP files!

This is so cool... and not even what I got Help and Manual for to begin with... so it was just a total bonus :)

Thanks a bunch guys!!

Stay in the 'Light!

Silverlight Web Articles I've tagged - My Silverlight Articles - My Silverlight Tutorials - SilverlightCream

posted @ Monday, August 27, 2007 1:42 PM

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# re: Help And Manual was a big help this weekend

Left by John Rennemeyer at 8/28/2007 6:12 AM
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If you are getting the "Navigation was Cancelled" error, then you need to view the properties of the .chm or .hlp (not verified on .hlp) and in the bottom right of the "General" tab, click on "Unblock". This will allow you to view the .chm file. It still defeats the purpose as you would have to explain this to every user that tried to view the file so your workaround is probably the best.

Or you could write a small help text file to say how to view the actual help file :)...only kidding.

Thanks,

John

# re: Help And Manual was a big help this weekend

Left by Martin Hinshelwood at 8/28/2007 9:28 AM
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Its not a Vista thing, it an IE7 thing, I needed to click Unblock on my XP system with IE7 on it as well...

# re: Help And Manual was a big help this weekend

Left by Dave at 8/28/2007 9:43 AM
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Interesting... because I'm running XP SP2 on IE7 and I don't have any trouble opeining any of that...

-Dave

# re: Help And Manual was a big help this weekend

Left by Chandra at 8/28/2007 11:57 AM
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WinHlp32.exe is required to display 32-bit Help files in Vista that have the ".hlp" file name extension. Its listed in KB 917607 and you can download it at the link below.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6EBCFAD9-D3F5-4365-8070-334CD175D4BB&displaylang=en

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