"Windows No Longer Supports 'Windows Help' Files"

That has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever heard of. But there is a cure for it. The issue is that Windows Help files are supposed to open with the program C:/Windows/Winhlp32.exe, which they have replaced with a fake one that only pops up that stupid window telling you it is no longer supported. The solution is to replace that program which is about 10kb, with the real one you need to find from Windows XP. I made a self extracting archive program that will do everything, but I can't share it, since it contains a copy of the Widows XP winhlp32, which is copyrighted.
But it's easy enough to find, the hard part is replacing the one that comes in Windows nt60, since technically, it's a system file, and Windows file protection doesn't let you overwrite those without a fight. You need to take down all of the file protection to do it. This is usually done by right clicking on the file in question, accessing the security settings, then taking ownership of it, adding yourself as a user, then granting yourself full permissions. But this can be done quicker from the command line. Open CMD.exe with elevated permissions ( "as admin ") and use this:

TAKEOWN /F C:\Windows\Winhlp32.exe /D
ATTRIB -R -S C:\Windows\Winhlp32.exe

Then, you can overwrite the bogus winhlp32 with the real one, which should be over 250kb, depending on which version of XP you harvest it from. If this worries you, rename the existing one to winhlp32.old or something, so you can reverse this if you want to. If you want to read Windows Help files, though, you won't. The program has the same name, and all the file associations that go with it are already present in the newer versions. So all you have to do is replace the fake one with the real one, and everything will work as it is supposed to.

I modified my Windows 7 installation source to fix this issue on when it installs Windows 7, simply by placing the XP version of winhlp32 in the folder \sources\$OEM$\$$. Not only does this fix the problem during the installation, by doing so, it bypasses the need to mess with the file permissions. That works every time. Winhlp32, obviously, is a 32 bit program, but it runs in either version of Windows, and there is only one version of it, so it doesn't matter which version of Windows nt60 you are using, I use it on the x64 Windows 7, and it works just fine.

One less annoyance in Windows 7.
"If you set a man a fire, you'll keep him warm for a night, but if you set a man on fire, you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life! "

 

Hi Micros, Have you received the "fake" message on your XP comp or is there a reason for your Thread. Is this causing a problem in general? Neil.

 

Not a problem anymore. I thought I'd share the fix, since it annoyed me until I fixed it. And it was pretty stupid, I thought, what did they manage to save a whopping 250kb by removing support for windows help files from windows? That makes no sense at all to me.
Are we not allowed to share solutions for problems we didn't have to ask anyone else for help solving? I usually don't need much help with anything, and Windows being what it is, there are thousands of little things wrong with it, you know? And they are almost all deliberate.

This wasn't about an illegal copy of windows, this was about making windows support windows help files, that have had support for them removed for no reason whatsoever. Once you get around all the file protections they put in to make it as hard as possible, it's an easy enough fix.