Easiest way to open chm files programmatically?

Question

Hi,

I have a legacy 32-bit application written in Borland's C++ Builder. I need to show specific pages from within a HtmlHelp file programmatically. Until now I've been doing this via HtmlHelp.ocx, but this does not work on x64 versions of Windows Vista / Windows7 as described in this thread.

I can't compile the application as 64-bit executable. Therefore the only workaround I have found so far is to create a 32-bit component implementing a COM object which loads and calls into the 32-bit DLL, and exposes the 32-bit DLL interface as a COM interface.

That sounds far too complicated just to display a chml file with a specific topic. There must be something else. But what is it?

Answer 1

Isn't this possible via the htmlhelp api ? (htmlhelp.h in the MS sdk?)

Specifically htmlhelpA function with HH_DISPLAY_TOPIC

Some people prefered going via the .OCX in the past because it was more reliable on IIRC w9x, but I assume that is not a problem in a 64-bit application.

It could be that these functions also list to some ocx/dll not there in 64-bit land, but it is worth a try. I can't easily check this.