Microsoft Help Viewer can be used as a standalone application?
I have a Windows 8 machine where I installed VS2013 without help and VirtualMachine with the same OS and the same VS but with the Help Viewer ( Help Viewer v2.1
) package installed .
I created this VM with a unique purpose, I would like to be able to use Microsoft Help Viewer (or other alternative software if exists) on my OS host without having to have VS2013 resin installed on my OS.
... So, in a very simple concept of reverse engineering, to be able to use the Microsoft Help Viewer on my host operating system, I just copied these folders from the VM to the computer:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Help Viewer
and
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2
And added these keys:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1]
"AppRoot"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.1\\"
"DefaultHelpViewerCLSID"="{FE220E43-FE17-47BE-A57E-84D2B9A5635D}"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1\Catalogs]
"ContentStore"="C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1\Catalogs\VisualStudio12]
"LocationPath"="%ProgramData%\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\VisualStudio12\\"
"LastUpdated"="02/26/2014 06:34:55"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1\Catalogs\VisualStudio12\en-US]
"SeedFilePath"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.1\\CatalogInfo\\VS11_en-us.cab"
"catalogName"="Visual Studio Documentation"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1\Setup]
"AppRoot"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.1\\"
"Install"=dword:00000001
"Version"="2.1.21005"
Note the meaning:
"DefaultHelpViewerCLSID"="{FE220E43-FE17-47BE-A57E-84D2B9A5635D}"
I don't know what the CLSID says, but a search in the VM registry with the search pattern FE220E43-FE17-47BE-A57E-84D2B9A5635D
doesn't find anything (but the help viewer works on the VM):
And I run the help viewer (from the command line) with the same arguments as in the VM:
HlpViewer.exe /CatalogName VisualStudio12 /Locale en-US /Sku 3000 /LaunchingApp Microsoft,VisualStudio,12.0 /Manage
But when I click on the button Update
in the Help Viewer to download the package, it just does nothing (nothing), any error is displayed or whatever, just anything, so I can "t download the documentation or find out what error I have.
Any idea to solve this strange problem? maybe I need a missing component to copy on my host OS?
Microsoft Help Viewer can simply be downloaded and installed as a standalone application?
Any alternative software to replace Microsoft Help Viewer ?
I tried to use H3Viewer , but it seems that it is only for VS2010, when I try to use the library manager, the program says I have not installed VS2010 Help.
UPDATE:
I solved the problem by downloading the documentation to the virtual machine and copying it to my OS, but I would like to know the solution to this problem anyway.
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I recently ran into the same problem: I didn't want to install "Visual Studio 2015" in order to be able to run the included "Help Viewer" application (v2.2).
It took a little time, but I ended up managing to get it up and running by following these steps:
- On a machine with VS2015 already installed, I used SysInternals Handle 4.0 to determine which files are required by the HlpViewer.exe executable
- I then ran Less MSIérables 1.40 and used it
l -t File
to iterate over all the MSI packages, which showed that most of the files needed can be found in two packages: help3_vs_net.msi and vs_minshellcore.msi . - To install them manually, you need to pass some additional command line arguments:
msiexec.exe /i help3_vs_net.msi VS_SETUP=1
msiexec.exe /i vs_minshellcore.msi MSIFASTINSTALL="7" VSEXTUI="1"
Unfortunately after this some files are still missing ... to keep things simple, I copied the remainder of the (above) working installation:
- C: \ ProgramData \ Microsoft \ HelpLibrary2
Essentially only contains CatalogType.xml and some empty directories. - C: \ Program Files (x86) \ Microsoft Help Viewer \ v2.2 \ CatalogInfo \ VS11_en-us.cab
Additionally, you need to provide your application with valid ContentStore content by importing the following .reg file:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.2\Catalogs\VisualStudio14]
"LocationPath"="%ProgramData%\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\VisualStudio14\\"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.2\Catalogs\VisualStudio14\en-US]
"SeedFilePath"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.2\\CatalogInfo\\VS11_en-us.cab"
"catalogName"="Visual Studio Documentation"
Finally, I created a new app shortcut and changed its Target: as follows:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Help Viewer\v2.2\HlpViewer.exe" /catalogName VisualStudio14 /launchingApp Microsoft,VisualStudio,14
Et voilà, with this HlpViewer.exe finally runs without problems!
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You are asking a few questions. I have not tried to reproduce, so I cannot answer your first question. But I can answer the title question:
The Microsoft Help Viewer cannot simply be downloaded. It comes with Visual Studio and VS ISO Shell only. So you cannot provide help content with Help Viewer for systems without Visual Studio ... View ... useless: /
But Windows 8 has something similar, so you can use some of the Help Viewer functionality.
Source here .
Alternative software: if you mean to open help files, I only know H3Viewer and some example projects where you can open files: Help Viewer 2 Examples .
If you mean "accept other help formats": good old HTML help (chm), MS help (h2x), and a simple website are some of the formats you can use.
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