How to show CHM help in IE 6.0

[Tom Wisnowski]

Hi,

I was wondering what was the best way to provide help on
my web site. I want to use CHM files, but when i create a
anchor to navigate to the chm file on the server, IE
displays a warning (asking to save the file). I don't want
to display this message to the user. I use code similiar
to this: <a href="http://server/help.chm">click here</a>

I know IE can download chm files to its temp cache without
prompting the user, i just don't know how it does it. I
have observed this by publishing the uncompressed help
files to server and using the Help OCX to vie the table of
contentes file (.hhc). The table of contents contains a
link to another chm file, which it downloads. No message
is displayed asking me to save.

How does it do that?

[Wei-Dong Xu [MSFT]]

Hi Tom,

Thank you for posting in MSDN managed newsgroup!

So far as I know on this issue, IE will always disply the prompt window for your web users when they request for the chm files. IE has been
designed to be safest possible client side application which allows users to navigate and download content off the web. To make sure that this
integrity and security is maintained, it doesn't have a switch mechanism which allows users trying to open various kinds of content in it without
the permission of the user who tries to download such content. The content could contain something malicious enough to fiddle with the files on
the users machine.

When you select the open button, IE will download the chm back to your box first and then the chm window will pop up for you. If you select save
button, the file will be stored directly to the location you specified. There are several articles for you on this topic:
Appendix A: MIME Type Detection in Internet Explorer
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/networking/moniker/overview/appendix_a.asp

FIX: Content-Disposition: Does not Force File Download Dialog
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q182/3/15.ASP

INFO: Executing Files by Hyperlink and the File Download Dialog Box
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q232/0/77.ASP

Based on my experience on this issue, I'd suggest you can use one 3rd party tool "chm2html Pilot" to transfer the chm file into a set of html files.
Then you can directly deploy the set of html files in your web site which is very quick and convenience for you. You can obtain more information
about this issue from the link. Please go to:
http://www.colorpilot.com/chm2html.html

Please feel free to let me know if you have any further questions.

Does this answer your question? Thank you for using Microsoft NewsGroup!

Wei-Dong Xu
Microsoft Product Support Services
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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[Pete Lees]

Tom,

Post by Tom Wisnowski
I was wondering what was the best way to provide help on
my web site. I want to use CHM files, but when i create a
anchor to navigate to the chm file on the server, IE
displays a warning (asking to save the file). I don't want
to display this message to the user.

There's a lot of useful information on how to access .chm files from
Web pages at:

http://helpware.net/htmlhelp/linktochm.htm

You may also want to look at a quite sophisticated method that Tom
Loya has developed and documented in the help file available from:

http://www.logicsmith.com/files/chmincab.zip

This file describes how to push down and install .chm files from the
Web to a client PC, in the background (without user notification and
without the Save/Open dialog box), and also how to use a Web page to
open a .chm file on the client PC to a specific topic and in a
pre-defined window.

--
Pete (Microsoft Help MVP)