.CHM NOT compatible with Vista?

[maniac9999]

Hey everyone,

I'm working with a programming team to determine the best Vista-compatible help format to use for an existing help project. The project was built using RH X5 for Word and the original output was WinHelp 2000. I thought that .CHM would be the logical (and easiest) solution, so I got a copy of the help project and created a "test" .CHM build using only one of the source Word files (I "deselected" the remainder - there are 535 Word files with over 2,000 topics in the original project).

During testing, the programming team encountered the following message when they tried to open the .CHM file on a Vista machine. I'm pretty sure that they linked the .CHM file to the supporting application.

Here's the message they sent me as a screenshot:

"Why can't I get Help from this program?

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which was used in previous versions of Windows and it is not supported in Windows Vista.

For more information, see Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) is no longer included with Windows (link) on the Microsoft support website."

Any ideas about questions I can ask the programming team to find a solution to this issue? Do I need to build the .CHM using RoboHelp HTML and NOT RoboHelp for Word?

Thanks,
Jim

[Peter Grainge]

That's the message I would expect if they called a HLP file rather than a CHM. Sounds like that is the problem.

A CHM file is a CHM file, doesn't matter what builds it.

[maniac9999]

Thanks Peter!

Would there be any reason that Vista might confuse a .CHM for a .HLP file? I think they're using Borland Delphi for the source code in the app. They're also using an XML file to somehow link the app to the help. I don't know the details of how this works, but I'm going to find out.

Jim

[Peter Grainge]

I have no experience of Vista but I cannot believe that is possible, certainly not without a lot of reports already.

If the CHM works OK independently of your application, then it has to be down to the call.

[MergeThis]

I'd have to agree with Peter; your developers haven't changed the call from one to HLP.


Good luck,
Leon

[---Dirk_Bock]

No, but they neither have changed their way to load the DLL. Probably they're using LoadLibrary with information from the registry. This doesn't seem to work under Vista anymore. The'll have to change to static biding instead.

Regards.

---Dirk Bock

[maniac9999]

Dirk,

Thanks for the additional info. I'm meeting with the Developer tomorrow am to see how the app, xml file, and .chm are working together. I'll be sure to ask about the LoadLibrary. Is this something specific to Delphi or is it/was it used for all apps that linked to a .CHM? Found out late yesterday that they're using Delphi 2005.

Jim

[---Dirk_Bock]

maniac999,

I'm not a real developer myself, but this is definitely a Windows thing. The application for which this problem has been reported before was written in C++.

Regards

---Dirk Bock