Opening hxt/hxc files

[Andrew]

I have a few *.hxt and *.hxc help files that I would
really like to open. Windows doesn't know what to do with
them. Winhelp.exe and winhlp32.exe can both only open
*.hlp files which is no help. I have found a program I
have called dexplore.exe that looks as if it should be
able to open these files, but it doesn't seem able to. I
don't know why I can't open these files. Any help would
be appreciated.

Andrew

 

[Crusty \Old B@stard\]

Where did the files come from? What program was used to create them? You
need the same program to use them.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
Where did the files come from? What program was used to create them? You
need the same program to use them.

They came as part of the Platform SDK that I downloaded
from MSDN. I was under the impression that they were
generic help files that I should just be able to open.
There is nothing (that I could find) in the Platform SDK
to open them.

Andrew

 

[Pete Lees]

Andrew,

I have a few *.hxt and *.hxc help files that I would
really like to open. Windows doesn't know what to do with
them. Winhelp.exe and winhlp32.exe can both only open
*.hlp files which is no help. I have found a program I
have called dexplore.exe that looks as if it should be
able to open these files, but it doesn't seem able to.

These files are in Microsoft Help 2.0 format and, yes, dexplore.exe is
the viewer with which you should be able to open them. You can do this
by typing the following at a command prompt, or associating it with a
desktop shortcut:

<path>\dexplore.exe /helpcol ms-help://<namespace>

where <namespace> is the name under which the help file has been
registered on your system. For example:

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help\dexplore.exe"
/helpcol ms-help://MS.VSCC

If you're not sure what the namespace is in this case, you could have
a look inside the following file, which lists all the namespaces
registered on your system:

\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft
Help\nslist.hxl

Unfortunately, the file is barely human-readable, which is why you may
be better off using either Dave Liske's custom Help 2.0 viewer
(http://www.mvps.org/htmlhelpcenter/mshelp2/h2view.html) or Rob
Chandler's FAR utility (http://helpware.net/FAR/index.html). Both let
you display a list of the registered namespaces and choose the one to
initialise.

 

[Andrew]

Thanks very much. That was just what I was looking for.

Andrew

These files are in Microsoft Help 2.0 format and, yes, dexplore.exe is
the viewer with which you should be able to open them. You can do this
by typing the following at a command prompt, or associating it with a
desktop shortcut:

<path>\dexplore.exe /helpcol ms-help://<namespace>

where <namespace> is the name under which the help file has been
registered on your system. For example:

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help\dexplore.exe"
/helpcol ms-help://MS.VSCC

If you're not sure what the namespace is in this case, you could have
a look inside the following file, which lists all the namespaces
registered on your system:

\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft
Help\nslist.hxl

Unfortunately, the file is barely human-readable, which is why you may
be better off using either Dave Liske's custom Help 2.0 viewer
(http://www.mvps.org/htmlhelpcenter/mshelp2/h2view.html) or Rob
Chandler's FAR utility

(http://helpware.net/FAR/index.html). Both let