Visual Studio Help is available in two versions, Visual Studio Help 2008 and 2010, which are also known as MS Help 2.0 and MS Help 3.0, respectively. Originally, each of these help formats was announced as the upcoming the successor to HTML Help. However, in both cases Microsoft then backpedaled and it now seems clear that they are not going to be released as help formats for normal user applications.

These formats are only relevant for documenting Visual Studio .NET programming components within the Microsoft Visual Studio programming environment. They cannot be used for documenting normal application programs.

This section just provides a brief introduction to publishing Visual Studio Help with Help+Manual. If you want to use Visual Studio Help you need to be experienced in VS.NET programming. It will not be of any use to you otherwise. In addition to this you should also study the relevant documentation in the Visual Studio package and the Visual Studio Help Integration Kit/VSHIK (for version 2.0, check the MSDN site for details).

You can find an excellent introduction to both versions of Visual Studio Help on the  Helpware.net website.

Support for Visual Studio Help (both formats) is only included in the Professional and Floating license versions of Help+Manual.

 

 

See also:

Visual Studio Help (Help Formats)

Visual Studio Help (Project Configuration)