Customize Help Home, Escalation, and Browse pages

Article
02/10/2014

Applies To: Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2

Customizing Help can improve and differentiate the experience for your users.

Customize the Home page of Help and Support

There are two ways to customize the Home page: simple or full. Simple customization adds a custom tile to the Home page. Full customization allows you to replace the content in the left pane of the Home page.

Home Page–simple

Because simple customization requires only that you supply an image and set some unattended-Setup settings, it's the easier way to create a differentiated and customized experience for your customers.

The following image shows the fictional company Fabrikam's Help Home page with simple customization.

To perform a simple customization

Create a .png file of the logo for your company or organization. The .png file must be 145 x 80 pixels. If the image is smaller than the required dimensions, it's be resized to fit the 145 x 80 space.

Format: .png file that has a transparent background or a gradient that matches the RBG TileColor color specified in the unattended-Setup setting.
Save the .png file to your customized Windows image.
In your Unattend.xml file, specify the following required settings in the Help and Support component:

Unattend setting	Value	Description
Manufacturer	Manufacturer_name Example: Fabrikam Corporation	The name of the organization that has customized Help and Support.
Logo	Path_to_logo Example: %systemdrive%\Fabrikam\Logos\Logo.png	The path of the logo for the Home page tile. You must make sure that the logo is a 145 x 80 pixels .png file and that it's correctly located on the customized Windowsimage (.wim) file. We recommend that you use environment variables for this setting.
LogoURL	Path Example webpage: https://fabrikam.com/support Example app shortcut: %SystemRoot%\system32\msra.exe Example Help topic: mshelp://OEM/?id=TopicID3g8ypfki7d3h0	The URL to be opened when a customer clicks the Home page tile. This setting is optional.
TileColor	Integer	The RGB color value used for the background color of the Home page tile. The RGB color model is used for specifying colors. This model specifies the intensity of red, green, and blue on a scale of 0 to 255. A 0 (zero) indicates the minimum intensity. The settings of the three colors are converted to a single integer value by using the following formula: RGB value = Red + (Green256) + (Blue256*256) For more information about the RGB color model, see RGB Color Model on MSDN. If the color isn't specified, the tile isn't displayed. For the background color to appear, you must also configure the Logo and Manufacturer settings.

Home page–full

Providing a fully customized Home page enables you to more effectively differentiate your customers' support experience in Windows Help and Support.

The following image shows the fictional company Fabrikam's Help Home page with full customization.

To perform a full customization

In your Unattend.xml file, set the Windows-Shell-Setup | HelpCustomized setting to true.
Modify the body text of the HomeTopic.htm sample file from the Windows ADK to include the custom content for your Home page.

You can customize any of the content within the document's <body> tag. Within the file's <head> tag, you can alter the Locale and TopicLocale values to match the locale of your Help content. However, you must not change the Id and NoIndex values. These values ensure that Help and Support is able to locate and display the topic as appropriate.
Save the topic into your content package and generate a new index (.mshi) file.
(Optional) Supply a style sheet (CSS file) to customize the look of your content.

Customize the Escalation page

There are two ways to customize the Escalation page: simple or full. Simple customization displays your support information. Full customization gives you greater influence over the escalation experience.

Escalation page–simple

To have Help and Support automatically display your support information, you only have to specify the required values in the Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup | OEMInformation path for unattended settings. Also, you must not include an EscalationTopic.htm file in the MSHC.

Important

Simple Escalation page customization should only be used for Windows images that are shipped with a single language installed and that are intended for use in a single country/region. If you preinstall more than one language on your image, you must provide an Escalation page for Help and Support that has been fully customized.

The following image shows the fictional company Fabrikam's Help Escalation page with simple customization.

Escalation page–full

Providing a custom Escalation page enables your organization to have more guidance over the escalation experience for your customers. For example, you could provide a link to chat with a support agent or to view a list of known issues in addition to your support hours and telephone numbers.

The following image shows the fictional company Fabrikam's Help Escalation page with full customization.

To add a custom Escalation page

In your Unattend.xml file, set the Windows-Shell-Setup-OEMInformation | HelpCustomized setting to true.
Modify the body text of the EscalationTopic.htm sample file from the Windows ADK to include the custom content for your Escalation page.
Save the topic to your .mshc package and generate a new index (.mshi) file.
(Optional) Supply a style sheet (CSS file) to customize the look of your content.

Customize the Resource pane

In addition to the Home and Escalation pages themselves, you can customize the Resource pane on those pages.

The Resource pane is displayed on the right side in markets with left-to-right languages and on the left side in markets with right-to-left languages.

To customize the Resource pane

In your Unattend.xml file, set the Windows-Shell-Setup | HelpCustomized setting to true.
Modify the body text of the ResourcesTopic.htm sample file from the Windows ADK to include values for your top-level topics.

You can customize the text within the H3 and paragraph tags in the page, but you can't add additional headings or links within the document's <body> tag. The customizable areas are listed in the ResourcesTopic.html sample file.

Within the file's <head> tag, you can change the Locale and TopicLocale values to match the locale of your Help content. However, you can't change the Id and NoIndex values. These values ensure that Help and Support is able to locate and display the topic appropriately.
Save the topic into your content package and generate a new index (.mshi) file.

Warning

You must not change the default styling of the template topic. This styling aligns with the Windows Resources pane content and ensures the visual consistency of the design.

Customize the Browse page

You can also customize the Browse page, which contains a list of topics that you select to help your customers quickly find the top-level content they need to solve their PC problems. Your topics appear directly below the Windows topics.

To customize the Browse page

In your Unattend.xml file, set the Windows–Shell-Setup | HelpCustomized setting to true.
Modify the body text of the BrowseTopic.htm sample file from the Windows ADK to include values for your top-level topics.

You can customize the text within the <H3> and <p> tags in the page, but you can't add additional headings or links within the document's <body> tag. The customizable areas are listed in the BrowseTopic.html sample file.

Within the file's <head> tag, you can alter the Locale and TopicLocale values to match the locale of your Help content. However, you can't change the Id and NoIndex values. These values ensure that Help and Support is able to locate and display the topic appropriately.
Save the topic into your content package and generate a new index (.mshi) file.