🚀 go-pugleaf

I don't know whether this is the appropriate newsgroup in which to ask 
this question.

The release of Vista has forced on me a task I had been hoping to avoid. 
  As most of you probably know, Vista (as a result of a deliberate 
decision by Microsoft) breaks help systems that call on winhlp32.exe -- 
in other words most help systems developed with all versions of C++ 
Builder up through 6.0 (I haven't checked out BDS 2006 yet).  I have a 
bunch of old applications that use the old Windows help system, and I 
need to change them because the apps are still "live".

I've already successfully incorporated HTML Help in a recent project -- 
I had no trouble implib-ing hhctrl.ocx to htmlhelp.lib.  But the project 
and help system were both designed for HTML Help from the ground up.  I 
did not use the ICustomHelpViewer interface, but just used Windows API 
function calls to link the help system to the application.

Is there any compelling reason to go back into those old apps and insert 
ICustomHelpViewer?  Or can I just trap for F1 keystrokes on the controls 
of interest (it's the context-sensitive help that give me the most 
concern here) and use the API function calls?  (I've heard that using 
the Application OnHelp event doesn't always work.)

Windows HTML Help workshop has a feature that converts your old help 
pages to .htm files, but it looks like there still would be a lot of 
work to do on the  HTML side if I use the ICustomHelpViewer approach -- 
not to mention, ICustomHelpViewer does not appear to be all that easy to 
use on the application side.  Using API calls, I could just simply call 
up the .htm pages I need.

Maybe someone reading this has already done a conversion and could 
advise me on this.

Phil Manger