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DanTheMan · Contributor Joined: 15 Mar 2002 Posts: 56 Location: Sweden

Hi,
I'm running a Win Vista machine with VDS 5, everything seemes to be fine
except for the help menu in GUI and (Ctrl+F1 for context-sensitive help.)

Just get a splash screen with: HTML help is not installed on this computer.
I can load the .chm help files manually without any problems at all ....
Any clue ?

Thanks
Dan

vtol · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:25 pm Post subject:

My VISTA ultimate(full version) reacts the same way.
I had the same problem plus had to turn off the UAC to run VDS and VDS programs including other software made for XP.
Also noticed it has a context menu to run programs without turning off the UAC(reminds me of DooM2 doors Laughing

).
If I find out something about the help file I'll let you know.
I dont use the VISTA much at all.
Sorry I wasnt any help Sad

Garrett · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:54 pm Post subject:

BTW, this isn't just a VDS issue, I've seen this type of report on other various programming and non-programming forums that I visit. It's something in Vista that's causing all this. Sad

-Garrett

vtol · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:01 pm Post subject:

I recall reading somewhere, you just need to log onto MS VISTA (add module)site and get the htm addon.
Something like that, dont remember exactly the technical words.
Plus they told me that when I bought the VISTA, but mine is OEM box.
But I think you have to go get things as you need them, kinda build your system I guess.

alwayslooking · Newbie Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 13

They have not included that style of html help file support in vista, however are planning to add it back in as part of a future update.

There is a workaround:

You can get the winhlp32.* files from an XP PC and copy them to your vista system and then manually and then associate the VDS.chm file with winhlp32.exe and run it.

Cheers

Matt

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1565

No reason to blame Vista, there were changes in the WinHelp api. An earlier article a few months back - Jules noted he found the problem with calling HTMLHLP and fixed it in VDS 6. For those that use VDS 5 to compile their programs - you may need to use SHELLEXECUTE to open the help file as the help commands will not work under Vista until you upgrade to VDS 6.

Also please note that .CHM Html Help IS SUPPORTED in Vista, you may be thinking of .hlp which is the old help format - no longer supported under Vista.

A new version of help is also out, but the api/compiler is not yet available - Microsoft will make it available within the next few months to developers.

vtol - I too am running Vista Ultimate. You do not need to turn of UAC for back compatibility with older XP programs, one workaround is to right click on the exe and go into their properties and enable RUN IN XP compatiblity mode. Also you can right click on the installation directory for that software and change the ACL permissions of that folder and give the EVERYONE user account full control permissions. Please be aware that there are security implications for doing this; provided you have any remote software on your computer which may allow users to connect to those modified dirs and snoop/execute software.

jules · Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:55 am Post subject:

Yes, Prakash is right. It's not a problem with Vista nor something that can be corrected by installing something into Vista. It's the result of a rather poorly-written bit of code for calling HTML Help that has been widely used by almost all Delphi developers who wish to use HTML Help in their programs due to the poor support included in Delphi by Borland. It therefore affects the VDS 5 IDE, the VDS 5 runtime and just about any Delphi program compiled earlier than the last few months when people became aware of the problem.

There is a workaround for the IDE that involves changing something in the registry. I can't remember what the change is, but I was sure I described it in this forum when the issue was originally discussed, though I can't find it using the search facility.

I also fixed the issue in the VDS 5 runtime. I hoped that this would be distributed by CR before Vista was out. However, the updated version can be downloaded from my missing DLLs web page at http://www.tech-pro.net/howto_016.html .

alwayslooking · Newbie Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 13

Thanks PGWare and Jules,
Guess there's lots of learning to do with Vista (and hopefully VDS 6).

I wasn't aware that it was an issue relating to Delphi and the way it called help files...thanks for pointing that out.

Looking forward to VDS 6.

Cheers

Matt

vtol · Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 2:58 am Post subject:

Is there a way to keep the toolbars in VDS5 the way you like them without them taking double line space the next time you run vds5. Question

I removed the Edit ToolBar, and now the compiler bar takes up to horizontal rows and is not as long vertically as I placed it.

It would be nice to be able to lock them as soon as you place them.

Its just allways been annoying to see wasted desktop space, I'm prolly just to picky.
_________________________
VDS6
would be nice to be able to set in preferences to make .dsc the default when opening files.
I hardly ever load DSP files into the IDE - because I have lost my work that way when sometimes the .DSP is lost by VDS somehow.
Just some hopefully unharmfull suggestions for VDS6 Cool

jules · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:11 pm Post subject:

VDS 6 has an option to lock the toolbars so they don't undock. But the time has long gone for making suggestions for it. I will be thankful if it just gets released as it is!

vtol · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:23 am Post subject:

Your absolutely right, I guess I was just spittin' words to see where the splatter Cool

jules · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:26 pm Post subject:

I could not find anywhere that I had posted the solution to the problem with HTML Help and VDS 5.

The problem is with the HelpWare help kit for Borland Delphi, which is used in a lot of Delphi programs, including VDS 5. It obtains the path to a component used to open the help files from this registry location: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{ADB880A6-D8FF-11CF-9377-00AA003B7A11\InProcServer32. In XP and below it is a full path. But in Vista the string contains the macro %SystemRoot% which must be expanded to get the correct path. The HelpWare code, and hence VDS 5, does not do this.

When I originally found the reason I thought I solved the problem by editing the registry and replacing %SystemRoot% by the correct path. But in the version of Vista I now have (RC2 Build 5744) Regedit gives me an error when I try to change it. I don't know how to overcome this.

Any ideas, anyone?

vdsalchemist · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:06 pm Post subject:

Jules,
Why are you trying to change the path to the ocx from using the environment variable to using a hardcoded value? Especially since the ocx is in the system path anyway?

vdsalchemist · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:59 pm Post subject:

Well I am not sure what everyone is trying to do but here is some code that will display a HTMLHelp file *.chm. Sorry but I could not use VDS and had to use my GadgetX.dll. The only way I know to use VDS is to use the Shell command.

cnodnarb · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:17 pm Post subject:

Would renaming the ocx to a dll extension actually work? I've not getten the hang of writing dll files but I am very familiar makingocx,

Thanks,
NodNarb