INFO: What Is the Minimal Internet Explorer Installation for HTML Help? (245477)

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To view HTML Help (.chm files), version 4.01 or later of Internet Explorer must be installed on the client system. HTML Help uses most of the functionality of Internet Explorer, including displaying HTML Help files, displaying graphics, playing animation and sound, running Visual Basic script, and many other features. If Internet Explorer is already installed, you only must supply your compiled Help file and the HTML Help viewer files redistributed in Hhupd.exe. If Internet Explorer is not already installed, you must either supply Internet Explorer or have your customer install it from another source.

Only a minimal installation of Internet Explorer is required to view .chm files. If a system has one of the following installed, the minimal components of Internet Explorer already have been installed along with the HTML Help viewer files, so only the CHM file must be distributed:

• Windows 2000
• Office 2000
• Visual Studio 6.0
• MSDN Library, any 1999 (or later) version
• Windows 98

If Internet Explorer is not on the client system, then you must create a minimal installation of Internet Explorer to distribute with your application. The tool used to create a minimal install of Internet Explorer is the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK). The Internet Explorer executable is only about 76 KB in size and constitutes all the core functionality needed to display an HTML file.

The IEAK is basically a wizard-style program that creates an installation package for Internet Explorer. The IEAK contains many settings and configurations for anything from a full-blown installation to a very minimal installation. The Web site http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/ie/ieak/default.mspx is the starting point for getting IEAK.

There is a license involved, but it is a very open license with very few restrictions. (It contains restrictions such as not redistributing Internet Explorer on a CD-ROM by itself.)

The only way to use the IEAK is to use the registration code you get from the License & Registration screen. Other than building the minimal installation of Internet Explorer using the IEAK, there is no other way to redistribute Internet Explorer and its components. Redistributing Internet Explorer in any other way is a violation of the license agreement.

If you do not want to use the IEAK, you may want to have customers install Internet Explorer from the Microsoft Web site: