How to set content location of Microsoft Help Viewer 2?

Question

I'm using Visual Studio 2012 Express. It ships with new help system: help viewer 2.0.

One of Help Viewer 1.1 settings is content location. So once some MSDN references have been downloaded, and if Visual Studio 2010 Express is reinstalled, those MSDN references don't have to be downloaded again. Just set the content location in Help Viewer 1.1 and all is fine.

But in Help Viewer 2.0, I don't see a "content location" setting. And some googling doesn't show me know how to do this. Do I have to download MSDN references every time I reinstall Visual Studio 2012 Express?

I'll be very thankful for any help.

Answer 1

Help Viewer 2.0 enables you to specify and move the location of the local content store from the "Manage Content" tab. However, there are two issues with doing this in your specific scenario (reusing downloaded content across install/uninstall cycles):

1. When you uninstall Help Viewer, it is likely that your downloaded content will be deleted. Help Viewer holds a ref count per language and, when the last reference is removed, it uninstalls that content to keep things clean.
2. When you use the UI to move your local store to a new location, Help Viewer will force the directory to be empty before moving the content.

To work around these issues, use this approach:

1. Install VS Express/Help Viewer and select your local store location (e.g. "D:\msdn")
2. Download content via the Manage Content UI
3. Before uninstalling VS Express/Help Viewer, backup the content folder
4. Uninstall VS Express/Help Viewer
5. Restore the backed up help folder to your desired local store location (e.g. "D:\msdn")
6. Install Express/Help Viewer

7. Modify the registry key to set the content store to your desired location:

   Key location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.0\Catalogs\VisualStudio11

   Key name: LocationPath (e.g. "D:\msdn")