Where did the offline docs go in Windows SDK 7.1?
Yesterday, when I was writing the short post on viewing the offline documentation I realized that the offline documentation story has changed a bit in Windows SDK 7.1. This was done for a number of reasons, but anyways, I ran into issues and thought I'd share some information on how to get the documentation available for offline viewing in the new system. First, install the offline documentation as described on the Windows SDK team blog. This does not install the documentation yet. When you first run the help system, it will synchronize some of the content down from the cloud. I expected the Windows SDK documentation to include the documentation from the Win32 and COM node but it didn't! So, here is how you can go back and change your documentation settings to include more of the documentation set (most notably Win32 and COM - titled "Windows Development" node from MSDN.
Next, select Manage Help Settings from the Documentation folder of the Windows SDK 7.1 program group (yeah, I said program group - feeling a little nostalgic).
This brings up the Help Library Manager. Which looks like this.
Click the online or local help button and switch your help to local.
Next, click the "Install content from online" and select the Win32 and COM Development content. This is the content that used to install with the Windows SDK.
Click Update and the software will update and then when you click the Windows SDK documentation from the documentation folder of the Windows SDK 7.1 program group, you will see all the content for the Win32 and COM Development node on MSDN.