Re: Starting Winhelp with VB6 application on Vista
- From: "Kevin Provance" <casey@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 21:19:22 -0400
What version of Vista? I have home premium SP1 on my laptop with no Winhelp
support at all.
- Kev
"MikeD" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OSijM%23elIHA.2396@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
| "MikeD" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
| news:ekp67pelIHA.5160@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| >
| > "Hansin" <hansin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
| > news:_7CdnY8ukfUrwmjanZ2dnUVZ8uadnZ2d@xxxxxxxxx
| >> Does anyone know of a way to activate "Winhelp" on Windows Vista from a
| >> VB6 application.
| >
| > A download is available for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 that
| > resolves an issue in which you cannot open Help files that require the
| > Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) program
| > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607
| >
| > But I do have some good news (as I decided to do some
investigating)....I
| > just looked at user32.dll from Vista using Dependency Walker and
| > user32.dll DOES export the WinHelpA (as well as WinHelpW) function. That
| > means if the winhlp32.exe program is present, you can *probably* still
| > call that API function to open your .hlp file. This means you may not
have
| > to make any changes to your programs' code.
|
| After more research, I found something I consider rather bizarre. One of
the
| last lines of the above KB article states:
|
| "Note Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 do still support WinHelp.exe
for
| 16-bit .hlp files. The WinHelp.exe program is a version of Windows Help
for
| 16-bit .hlp files. The WinHelp.exe program is still included in Windows
| Vista."
|
| I've confirmed this. I copied an old 16 bit program and its help to Vista
| and it ran fine (and this was even with UAC turned on). Clicking the Help
| menu in this 16 bit program opened its .hlp file. If I simply
double-clicked
| the .hlp file (from Explorer or whatever it is known as in Vista), I got
| Vista's Help and Support topic of "Why can't I get Help from this
program".
|
| So, Microsoft provides legacy support for .hlp files in old 16 bit
programs,
| but not in more recent 32 bit programs. I'm sure they have their reasons.
|
| Actually, I thought MS had completely dropped support for 16 bit apps in
| Vista and they simply wouldn't run. Period. But maybe I'm confusing that
| with 64 bit versions of Windows (as I KNOW those no longer support 16 bit
| apps).
|
| Here's the really funny thing that I couldn't help but laugh about....all
I
| had to do was copy the files from the application folder of this 16 bit
app
| from my WinXP PC to a folder on Vista (which was running in Virtual PC
2007,
| so with virtual machine additions installed I was able to just drag and
drop
| from WinXP to the Vista vpc) and this 16 bit program ran fine in Vista.
| Just copy 3 program files (the .exe, a dll located in the same folder as
the
| .exe, and the .hlp) and 1 data file (so the program had something to
open).
| No installation. No DLL registration. No hassle. And most importantly, no
| BS. What happened to those days? I miss them. I think I'm gonna get my
old
| Commodore 128 out of the closet. <g>
|
| --
| Mike
| Microsoft MVP Visual Basic
|
|
.
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