April 2006:  Affects any individual who might be wanting to install one or more of the above programs onto a network drive, WHERE the application contains an HTML .chm format help-file.

The recent Microsoft Security Update 896358 (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms05-026.mspx) not only fixes a vulnerability in HTML Help, it prevents HTML Help files from execution, if the CHM file is installed on a network drive. CHM files installed locally continue to work. This affects all HTML.chm Help files.

Symptoms: When you open a CHM file from a UNC path or from a network drive even if the network drive is mapped to a drive letter, the HTML Help viewer opens and instead of displaying the topic, it displays an error message "Action cancelled" in the topic pane. The Microsoft Security Update 896358 restricts execution of HTML Help files to the local machine zone. In fact it disables half of the CHM files in the world (the other half is installed on the C: drive)!

Solution: A new utility program created by EC software (the people who sell Help and Manual help-file creation software) allows you to register a chosen help file on your network - so that the network recognizes that a help file exists on a network drive, and permits access to it by users. The very user-freindly program (338kb) may be downloaded here:  HTML_Help_Registration_Utility_Program_for_Networks.zip.