Which Windows Help technology uses DLLs to contain the actual help contents?

Question

Context: Windows 7, Microsoft Office 2007+

There have been a variety of different delivery mechanisms developed by Microsoft over the years to provide "Help".

HTML Help - Tech Info lists QuickHelp, WinHelp, WinHelp95, HTML Help 1.x, Help 2.x and AP Help. The list stops there, but I can't imagine Microsoft has.

Of late I've been seeing what appears to be a help system which embeds everything in a DLL. I'm trying both to track down the toolset that is used to develop this DLL-based delivery method, and discover the API which drives it. This system appears to be what handles Microsoft Excel's help.

Answer 1

You can't imagine but it's true - recommended application help is HTMLHelp (1996). Please note Office 2007 Help is Help 2.

Microsoft Help 2.x is a proprietary format for online help files, developed by Microsoft and first released in 2001 as a help system for Visual Studio .NET (2002) and MSDN Library.

Microsoft Help 2.x is the help engine used in Microsoft Visual Studio 2002/2003/2005/2008 and Office 2007. Help files are made with the Help 2.0 Workshop (VSHIK), a help authoring tool. The default viewer for Help 2.x files is Microsoft Document Explorer, and there are several third-party viewers available such as H2Viewer and Help Explorer Viewer.

Visual Studio 2010 uses a new help engine, Microsoft Help Viewer 1.

A time line:
1990 – WinHelp
1996 – HTML Help
2001 - MS Help 2 (dropped on 2001-12-28 as application help)
2010 – Help Viewer 1
2012 – Help Viewer 2 / Windows 8 help

and related to Visual Studio help integration only

MS Help 2.x (.hxs -- vs 2002/2003/2005/2008 help)
Help Viewer 1.x (vs 2010 help)
Help Viewer 2.x (vs 2012 help)