Microsoft Help Viewer

Microsoft Help Viewer, also known as^[2] Microsoft Help 3, is a help format developed by Microsoft. It is much simplified compared to previous formats, with no project format or compiliation step; it is simply a ZIP file, renamed with the extension ".mshc" ("Microsoft Help Container"^[3]), of the relevant resources, the main help pages being in XHTML^[4]. There were two versions, "HV1" (2010^[1]) and "HV2" (2012^[1]), which are "basically the same[;] HV2 has a few more meta statements but these wont [sic] break backward compatibility."^[5] The major difference between the versions was in the main implementation (and/or API) of the software that read them.^[5][6]

The .mshc file might come alongside a pregenerated search index with the extension ".mshi"^[7]; or also an HTML "Product Manifest file", with the extension ".msha"^[8], which specifies the organization of multiple .mshc files^[9]. It might also be packed into a CAB file.

Like Microsoft Help 2, most uses of Microsoft Help Viewer mentioned online seem to extend to documentation of software development tools.^[10]

Links

• MSHelpWiki: Help Viewer
• Helpware knowledgebase: MS Help Viewer
  • HV1
  • HV2
• Page on the Microsoft website
• Wikipedia:Microsoft Help Viewer

See Also

• CHM
• Microsoft Help 2

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microsoft_Help_Viewer&oldid=952518472#History
2. ↑ http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-help-viewer/hvinfo → Introduction, here called "MS Help 3"
3. ↑ http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-help-viewer/hvinfo#TOC-.MSHC-Microsoft-Help-Container---Help-file
4. ↑ http://hv2.helpmvp.com/doc/file-format
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-help-viewer/hv2info
6. ↑ http://mshelpwiki.helpmvp.com/mshelp/help-viewer
7. ↑ http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-help-viewer/hvinfo#TOC-.MSHI-Microsoft-Help-Index---Index-fragment
8. ↑ http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-help-viewer/hvinfo#TOC-.MSHA---Product-Manifest-file
9. ↑ http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-help-viewer/hvinfo#TOC-Packages-Books-Catalogs
10. ↑ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/help-viewer/overview?view=vs-2019