Microsoft Help Viewer can be used as an independent Application?

Question

I have a machine with Windows 8 where I've installed VS2013 without Help viewer, and a VirtualMachine with the same OS and the same VS but with the Help Viewer package installed (Help Viewer v2.1).

I've create that VM with an unique purpose, I would like to be able to use Microsoft Help Viewer (or other alternative software, if exist) in my host OS without resinstalling VS2013 in my OS.

...So in a very basic intent of reverse engineering to be able to use Microsoft Help viewer in my host OS I've just copied these folders from the VM to my PC:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Help Viewer

And

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2

And added these keys:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1]
"AppRoot"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.1\\"
"DefaultHelpViewerCLSID"="{FE220E43-FE17-47BE-A57E-84D2B9A5635D}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1\Catalogs]
"ContentStore"="C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1\Catalogs\VisualStudio12]
"LocationPath"="%ProgramData%\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\VisualStudio12\\"
"LastUpdated"="02/26/2014 06:34:55"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1\Catalogs\VisualStudio12\en-US]
"SeedFilePath"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.1\\CatalogInfo\\VS11_en-us.cab"
"catalogName"="Visual Studio Documentation"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.1\Setup]
"AppRoot"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.1\\"
"Install"=dword:00000001
"Version"="2.1.21005"

Notice the value:

"DefaultHelpViewerCLSID"="{FE220E43-FE17-47BE-A57E-84D2B9A5635D}"

I don't know what reffers that CLSID but a search on the registry of the VM with the search pattern FE220E43-FE17-47BE-A57E-84D2B9A5635D does not find anything (but the help viewer works properlly on the VM):

And I launch the Help Viewer (from commandline) with the same arguments as I get in the VM:

HlpViewer.exe /CatalogName VisualStudio12 /Locale en-US /Sku 3000 /LaunchingApp Microsoft,VisualStudio,12.0 /Manage

But when I press the Update button in the Help Viewer to download a package, just does nothing (of nothing) any error is shown or something else, just anything, so I can't download documentation or know what error I'm having.

Any idea to resolve this strange problem? maybe I need a missing component to copy on my host OS?

Microsoft Help Viewer can be just downloaded and installed as a standalone application?

Any alternative Software to replace Microsoft Help Viewer?

I've tried to use H3Viewer but seems that it's only for VS2010, when I try to use the library manager the program says that I have not VS2010 Help installed.

UPDATE:

I've solved the issue by downloading the documentation on the VM and copying them into my OS, but anyways I would like to know a solution for this problem.

Answer 1

I recently faced the same problem: I didn't want to install "Visual Studio 2015" just to be able to run the accompanying Help Viewer (v2.2) application.

It took a little bit of time, but in the end I managed to get it running by following these steps:

• On a computer with VS2015 already installed, I used SysInternals Handle 4.0 to determine which files are required by the HlpViewer.exe executable
• I then ran Less MSIérables 1.40 and used its l -t File argument to iterate over all MSI packages, which revealed that most of the required files can essentially be found in two packages: help3_vs_net.msi and vs_minshellcore.msi.
• To install these manually, one needs to pass some additional command line arguments:
  msiexec.exe /i help3_vs_net.msi VS_SETUP=1
msiexec.exe /i vs_minshellcore.msi MSIFASTINSTALL="7" VSEXTUI="1"

Regrettably, after that some files are still missing ... to keep things simple, I copied the rest of them from the (aforementioned) working installation:

• C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary2
  Essentially only contains a CatalogType.xml and some empty directories.
• C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Help Viewer\v2.2\CatalogInfo\VS11_en-us.cab

Moreover, it's necessary to provide the application with a valid ContentStore path by importing the following .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.2\Catalogs\VisualStudio14]
"LocationPath"="%ProgramData%\\Microsoft\\HelpLibrary2\\Catalogs\\VisualStudio14\\"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Help\v2.2\Catalogs\VisualStudio14\en-US]
"SeedFilePath"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Help Viewer\\v2.2\\CatalogInfo\\VS11_en-us.cab"
"catalogName"="Visual Studio Documentation"

Finally, I created a new Application Shortcut and changed its Target: to read as follows:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Help Viewer\v2.2\HlpViewer.exe" /catalogName VisualStudio14 /launchingApp Microsoft,VisualStudio,14

Et voilà, with that HlpViewer.exe finally executes without any problems!

Answer 2

You ask multiple questions. I did not tried to reproduce so i can not answer your first question. But i can answer the title question:

Microsoft Help Viewer cannot be just downloaded. It is only shipped by Visual Studio and VS ISO Shell based products. So you cannot provide help content with Help Viewer for systems without Visual Studio... Kind of... useless :/

But on Windows 8 there is something similar so you can use some features of Help Viewer.

Source here.

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Alternative Software: If you mean open the help files, I only know H3Viewer and some example projects where you can open files: Help Viewer 2 Examples.

If you mean "take other help formats": the good old HTML Help (chm), MS Help (h2x) and a simple Website are some formats you can use.