Official WinHelp announcement

["Char James-Tanny" <charjtf -at- gmail -dot- com>]

(While this message is signed by me, it also comes from fellow Help
MVPs Paul Neshamkin, Dana Worley, Scott Boggan, and Rob Cavicchio.)

Monday night, some of the Microsoft Help MVPs and some of the HAT
vendors met with Microsoft in a closed-door meeting at the WritersUA
Conference. Part of the discussion centered around WinHelp.

We want everyone to know that the end of WinHelp is in sight. Many of
you may already know this (there have been some rumors to that
effect).

The WinHelp engine will not be included in Microsoft Vista. In
addition, the engine will not be available for download or
redistribution.

Everyone in the meeting was well aware of the impact of this decision,
which was not made lightly.

If you are currently delivering WinHelp systems, especially for
customers who you know will probably upgrade to Vista, you need to
start moving to HTML Help (or another output). Even if your customers
won't move right away, you need to start moving them to another
output.

(NOTE: I announced this yesterday on HATT. To clarify one possible
question: this supersedes all previous announcements.)

Microsoft Help MVPs Char James-Tanny, Paul Neshamkin, Dana Worley,
Scott Boggan, and Rob Cavicchio
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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