How do I use HelixoftHelpReg.exe in my MSI package?
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When you want to deploy Help 2 or HTML Help 1.x
(.chm) documentation, you must register it on target machine.
Registered users can use small command line utility HelixoftHelpReg.exe
for this. See VSdocman Help for more details. You can call
HelixoftHelpReg.exe from your installer. Here I'll show you how to use
it with MSI installer built in your VS .NET.
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We assume that you already have deployment project in your solution.
- Generate Help 2 or CHM documentation with VSdocman.
- Add all necessary generated files in your deployment project.
For Help 2 it is content of whole FINAL_DOC folder.
For CHM:
- PROJECT_NAME.chm
- PROJECT_NAME_dyn_help.xml
- HelpRegCfg.xml
- register_PROJECT_NAME.bat
- unregister_PROJECT_NAME.bat
- HelixoftHelpReg.exe
- There are two versions of our registratin tool:
HelixoftHelpReg.exe....with console window and output messages
HelixoftHelpRegQ.exe...without console window, maybe more suitable for installation
If you don't want to use console window, just replace
HelixoftHelpReg.exe in your deployment project with to use
HelixoftHelpRegQ.exe from VSDOCMAN_PATH\Redist folder.
Now we add custom actions to our deployment project which call HelixoftHelpReg(Q).exe on install and uninstall.
- In Solution Explorer, select a deployment project.
- On the View menu, point to Custom Actions
- Add Custom action in
Install, browse to register_PROJECT_NAME.bat and select it. If you want
to use HelixoftHelpRegQ.exe instead of HelixoftHelpReg.exe, just modify
this BAT file. You don't need to call .BAT file. Instead, you can call
HelixoftHelpReg(Q).exe directly. Just copy the arguments from .BAT file
to Arguments field in Properties window. They should look like:
-r -f"HelpRegCfg.xml" -d"PROJECT_NAME_dyn_help.xml"
- Add Custom action in
Uninstall, browse to unregister_PROJECT_NAME.bat and select it. If you
want to use HelixoftHelpRegQ.exe instead of HelixoftHelpReg.exe, just
modify this BAT file. You don't need to call .BAT file. Instead, you
can call HelixoftHelpReg(Q).exe directly. Just copy the arguments from
.BAT file to Arguments field in Properties window. They should look
like:
-u -f"HelpRegCfg.xml" -d"PROJECT_NAME_dyn_help.xml"
That's all. You can build your MSI file and try it (the best on other machine).
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