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Override Help Viewer defaults

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You can change the default behavior of Microsoft Help Viewer and help-related features in the Visual Studio IDE.

Help Content Manager is a tool that you can use to deploy and manage local Help Viewer content. To change Help Viewer behavior, you can override default settings of the Help Content Manager executable program, HlpCtntMgr.exe.

There are different ways to set Help Content Manager options:

  • Create a .pkgdef file to set registry key values.
  • Set options directly in the registry.

Use a .pkgdef file to change Help Viewer behavior

A .pkgdef file stores configuration information that Help Viewer uses. You can use a .pkgdef file to adjust the registry key values that the following table lists:

Registry key value Type Data Description
NewContentAndUpdateService string <service endpoint URL> Define a unique service endpoint
UseOnlineHelp dword 0 to specify local Help, 1 to specify online Help Define online or offline Help default
OnlineBaseUrl string <service endpoint URL> Define a unique F1 endpoint
OnlineHelpPreferenceDisabled dword 0 to enable or 1 to disable online Help preference option Disable online Help preference option
DisableManageContent dword 0 to enable or 1 to disable the Manage Content tab in Help Viewer Disable the Manage Content tab
DisableFirstRunHelpSelection dword 0 to enable or 1 to disable help features that are configured the first time that Visual Studio starts Disable installation of content at first launch of Visual Studio

To set registry key values in a .pkgdef file, follow these steps:

  1. Create a new file, and give it the extension .pkgdef.

  2. Add the following text to the file's first line:

    [$RootKey$\Help]

  3. On separate lines, add any of the registry key values that the previous table describes. For instance, you might add this line to configure the UseOnlineHelp value:

    "UseOnlineHelp"=dword:00000001

  4. Copy the file to the CommonExtensions folder of your installation of Visual Studio. For instance:

    • If you use the Community edition of Visual Studio 2017, add the .pkgdef file to this folder:

      C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions

    • If you use the Community edition of Visual Studio 2022, add the .pkgdef file to this folder:

      C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions

  5. At a developer command prompt, run this command:

    devenv /updateconfiguration

Example .pkgdef file contents

[$RootKey$\Help]
"NewContentAndUpdateService"="https://some.service.endpoint"
"UseOnlineHelp"=dword:00000001
"OnlineBaseUrl"="https://some.service.endpoint"
"OnlineHelpPreferenceDisabled"=dword:00000000
"DisableManageContent"=dword:00000000
"DisableFirstRunHelpSelection"=dword:00000001

Use Registry Editor to change Help Viewer behavior

You can control the following types of behavior by setting registry key values in the Registry Editor.

Task Registry Key Value Data
Override BITS job priority HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node (on a 64-bit machine)\Microsoft\Help\v2.3 BITSPriority foreground, high, normal, or low
Point to local content store on network share HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Help\ v2.3\Catalogs\VisualStudio15 LocationPath ContentStoreNetworkShare

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