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Keep Offline Help Up-to-Date in Visual Studio 2010

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One of my favorite features offered by the new help system in Visual Studio 2010 is the ability to easily update offline content with the latest documentation from MSDN. If you use offline documentation in Visual Studio, one of the first things you should do after installation is to check for the latest updates to the documentation. (Hopefully you’ve noticed that the .NET 4 WPF docs are no longer in ‘preview mode’ on MSDN…)

In previous versions of Visual Studio, there was no way to update the documentation that shipped in the box. When documentation bugs were fixed or new content was added, you had to go to the online library to see the latest content. Now you can use the Help Library Manager to easily find and install the latest fixes and additions.

There are two ways that you can get to the Help Library Manager.

Through the Start menu: Start > Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 > Visual Studio Tools > Manage Help Settings

HLM - Start

Through the Help menu in Visual Studio 2010:

HLM - VS Help

In the Help Library Manager, you can select whether to use online or local help, install content, and check for updates.

HLM - Check for Update

You can only check for updates to content that you have installed locally, so if you haven’t installed content, select ‘Install content from online’ to select content to be installed locally.

If you have content installed, select “Check for updates online”.

You’ll be shown a list of the content that you have installed, whether updates are available, and the size of the download. Click ‘Update’ to download and install the latest content.

HLM - Update

You have to check for updates manually, so how often should you check? If the download size is not an issue and you want to have the very latest content available, I recommend checking every 4 to 6 weeks to keep your local help updated with newly published content.

For more information about the new help system, see this video on Channel 9 and the official documentation on MSDN.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 20, 2010
    This is great, but why are the menu items labeled "Manage Help Settings" while the dialog is titled "Help Library Manager"? Furthermore, the dialog that "Manage Help Settings" brings up has both "Help" and "Settings" on the upper right in addition to links that seem to be the help settings.... This cannot be the optimal UI for this feature.

  • Anonymous
    July 23, 2010
    Hi - I have passed your comments along to the team that owns this feature. Margaret

  • Anonymous
    September 27, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 04, 2011
    Welp.  Don't I feel foolish.  My above steps fixed some things, but not others.  Ugh.

  • Anonymous
    March 27, 2012
    This is all well and ood but if your internet connection drops out the next time you do the update it starts from the very begining again, the files should be available for download.