Reference > Publishing Formats > Visual Studio Help

Visual Studio Help is also known as MS Help 2.0. Originally this help format was intended to be the successor of HTML Help. However, Microsoft then postponed its release indefinitely and it is now clear that it is never going to be released as a help format for normal user applications.

Please note that the support for Visual Studio Help/MS Help 2.0 is only included in the Professional version of Help & Manual.

Visual Studio Help is not for consumer applications!

Visual Studio Help is only used for documenting components designed to be integrated into the Visual Studio .NET programming environment. The advantage of this is that the documentation becomes part of VS.NET's own documentation, making it possible to provide context-sensitive help for third-party VS.NET components.

For all other online help applications you should always use HTML Help. For more information see Visual Studio Help in the More Advanced Procedures section.