There are now 3 types of catalogs but first let's recap on the differences between HV1 and HV2... Quick TourHV1 / HV2Help Viewer 2.0 is the help system for Vistual Studio 11 (2012).
Help Viewer 1.0/1.1 is the help system for Visual Studio 10 (2010) and VS 10 SP1.
Previously Visual Studio 200? used a complete different help system called MS Help 2.0. HV1 Local StoreIn HV1 there was a single location (folder) on the PC (called the Help Store or Locale Store or Library Store) where all HV1 catalogs were stored. Each catalog was known by it's Product-ID/Version/Locale. EG. The English VS 10 help catalog was VS/100/en-US and the French help was a separate catalog VS/100/fr-FR. We used HlpLibManager.exe to add/remove/download help content.
HV2 Local StoreHV2 catalog stores have a slightly different structure and can now be located anywhere on the PC. The Help Content Manage is now embedded inside the VS Help Viewer application ("Manage Content" tab).
HV2 Catalog StructureMain files and folders that make up a VS locale store:
Locale (Language) CodesWhat locale codes are used by Microsoft Visual Studio? Last time I checked there were 10 core languages (9 + En) that shipped with VS 2010 RTM.
* Note that MS use modern Spanish LCID (3082) not the traditional Spanish LCID 0x040A (1034). Other language codes used by MSDN online. There may be others but these are the main locales I've observed.
Catalog .MSHX FileHV2 introduces an all-in-one compressed file format (almost like a .chm except it can't merge with other help files). These files contain a single .mshc help file with the associated .mshi index appended.
HelpIndexer.exeUtility to create a .mshx file or .mshi index fragment file from a single .mshc help file. Currently HelpIndexer.exe command line utility is only available by downloading the Windows 8 ADK. Once the ADK is installed you will find HelpIndexer.exe in the folder: C:\Program Files\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment and Imaging Tools\HelpIndexer\The .mshi index files produced by helpindexer.exe work with both HV 1.1 (VS 2010 SP1) and HV 2.0 (VS 2012). .mshc Help File (help package)Help files are compatible with both HV1 & HV2 help systems. Take some HTML files, add required Meta tags and zip them to a .mshc file (using WinZip or Windows Zip), and you now have a HV1/HV2 compatible help file. An MS Compiler (Workshop) isn't required since the ripping to .mshi index file is done at install time. .mshi Index FileThere are 2 types of .mshi index files. In a VS (managed) catalog you will find a folder <catalog>\ContentStore\<locale> where all the .mshc help files are stored. Beside each help file you will see a matching .mshi index file. These are produced when you install your help, and contain a rip of all the meta data and search terms found in the help file. Microsoft actually ship pre-ripped .mshi index files (see .cab files below) to speed up their installations.In <catalog>\IndexStore\<locale> the Content Manager generates a single merged index containing all the catalog index fragments. This is updated whenever you add or remove a help package to a catalog. Help Manager stores this large master index as a series of smaller .mshi files.Microsoft help is enormous, so to speed up the adding of help packages, they pre-generate the .mshi help fragment for each .mshc help file and package them into a .cab file which can then be sign and silently installed. The name of the .cab file should be the same as the name of the help and index files (minus the file extension). You can also pre-generate your own help index fragments using the HelpIndexer.exe utility
VS 11 Local Store LocationThe default location for the VS 11 store is:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2\Catalogs\VisualStudio11Catalogs (as used by the VS Help Viewer) are defined in the registry. Here the default catalog "VisualStudio11" is defined. You can define your own catalogs in a similar fashion (just replace the key VisualStudio11 with your catalog name). [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Help\v2.0]"AppRoot"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.0\\""DefaultHelpViewerCLSID"="{FE220E43-FE17-47BE-A57E-84D2B9A5635D}"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs]"ContentStore"="C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs\VisualStudio11]"LocationPath"="C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\VisualStudio11\\"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs\VisualStudio11\en-US]"SeedFilePath"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.0\\CatalogInfo\\VS11_en-us.cab""catalogName"="Visual Studio 2011 Help Documentation"MS are not currently shipping a 64 -bit version of the help runtime (like in VH 1.x help running on Win 7 64-bit). So on a Win 64-bit PC look in the Wow6432Node area of the registry...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0... and the 32-bit run-time files would be here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Help Viewer\v2.0The VS 11 store can be relocated using the VS 11 Help Viewer, so there is normally no reason to modify these registry settings unless you want to register your own catalog for viewing with HlpViewer.exe (the VS 11 Help Viewer).
A registry dump from my 64-bit machine... [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help][HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0]"AppRoot"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.0\\""DefaultHelpViewerCLSID"="{FE220E43-FE17-47BE-A57E-84D2B9A5635D}"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs]"ContentStore"="C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs\VisualStudio11]"LocationPath"="C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\VisualStudio11\\""LastUpdated"="08/17/2012 07:43:39"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs\VisualStudio11\en-US]"SeedFilePath"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.0\\CatalogInfo\\VS11_en-us.cab""catalogName"="Visual Studio 2012 Documentation"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Setup]"AppRoot"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.0\\""Install"=dword:00000001"Version"="2.0.50727"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\VSDocsShortcut][HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\VSDocsShortcut\1033]"installed"="50727"Register a Catalog for VS 11 ViewerAny help catalog can be viewed in VS 11 HlpViewer.exe as long as it is first registered. We do this by adding a catalog alias and associated catalog folder path to the registry.
Here a catalog alias "ACME" points to english help in the catalog folder
D:\MSHelpProject\ACMECatalog\."catalogName"= is the name displayed in the title bar of the HlpViewer.exe application window.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs\ACME] "LocationPath"="D:\\MSHelpProject\\ACMECatalog" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs\ACME\en-US] "catalogName"="ACME Example Catalog"To open this catalog in HlpViewer.exe, run
HlpViewer.exe /catalogName ACMESee also "Creating a Catalog" (below) and VS 11 Help Viewer Window.
Blow Away the StoreStuff happens (eg. hard disk corruption) and sometimes we may need to delete the VS 11 Help Store by hand and rebuild it.
Creating a Managed CatalogHow to create, register and view your own catalog using HlpViewer.exe:
Unmanaged & .MSHX CatalogsSo far we've talked about the VS 11 "Managed" catalogs which are maintained by the VS 11 Content Manager (via the Manage tab in the VS 11 Help Viewer or the VS 11 Help Content Manager command-line utility). You can also create "Unmanaged" catalogs and .MSHX single help file catalogs that you maintain yourself. These catalog types are incompatible with the VS 11 Help Viewer, and can only be opened by HV2 Help API calls. The code examples on this site allow you to explore and open these type of catalogs. "Unmanaged" CatalogsWindows 8 uses unmanaged catalogs and this is why HelpIndexer.exe (see above) ships with the Win 8 ADK deployment kit. IE. So you can generate the required .mshi index file.For Windows OEM help what happens is this...
That's it! No other XML or catalog files are required. Each OEM drops in there own .mshc/.mshi files (as above) and when the API Catalog.Open() call opens the catalog via Open("c:\windows\help\OEM", "en-US"), we see a merged help system of all content (similar to HTML Help .chm merge). But you will need a viewer (which we will be providing at some stage).Generating the .mshi IndexNormally we would use the HelpIndex.exe utility to create the matching .mshi index file from the .mshc content file. Note that the code examples contains a GUI interface for HelpIndexer.exe. The 3rd type of catalog is .mshx file. These are just a single a .mshc help file with matching .mshi index appended. They cannot be merged with other help or opened in VS 11 help viewer, but can be open using the HV2 API. These are great for single help file systems and do not require all the folder structure of managed or unmanaged stores. Like other catalogs they can be located anywhere on the hard disk. Use the HelpIndex.exe utility to create the .mshx from the .mshc help file. Last WordBy now you are getting the picture. Only VS 11 "managed catalogs" can be opened in VS HlpManager.exe and updated using the "Manager Content" tab in VS 11 Help Viewer or the VS Content Manager command line utility (we did the same in HV1 using HelpLibManager.exe). If your customers have VS 11 then you can create managed catalogs, and customers can use the VS 11 Viewer & Content Manager tools to add/remove/update/View content. And remember that the access point for updates can be any web site (as long as it has the correct file content). So your customers can get quite a rich experience. On systems that do not have VS 11, your choice are:
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