Thoughts about setup and deployment issues, WiX, XNA, the .NET Framework and Visual Studio
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The Windows Phone Developer Tools CTPs and Beta have only offered online documentation for general Windows Phone developer topics and Silverlight Windows Phone application development topics. However, it is possible to use the Visual Studio 2010 Help Library Manager to download an offline copy of the Windows Phone developer documentation. Here are the steps I’ve used to do this on my computer:
XNA Game Studio 4.0, which is installed as a part of the Windows Phone Developer Tools setup process, installs a CHM file with offline documentation, but the CHM file can only be launched via the shortcut on the Windows start menu (located at All Programs | Microsoft XNA Game Studio 4.0 | XNA Game Studio Documentation). The CHM cannot by pressing F1 while working on an XNA Game Studio project in the Visual Studio IDE.
We are planning to make the XNA Game Studio 4.0 documentation available for offline download via the Help Library Manager in the future. Once we do that, you will be able to download and install the documentation in the same way that I described above for the Windows Phone Development documentation. After installing the offline documentation using Help Library Manager, you will be able to access the documentation by pressing F1 while working on an XNA Game Studio project in the Visual Studio IDE.
<update date="7/30/2010"> Updated the first step in this post with an easier way to launch Help Library Manager. </update>
thanks a lot!
great info thanks!
FYI, this has changed somewhat (or at least it's different on my VS). There's an option to install offline content from the web (if you do that then everything else you've shown is correct).
Hi Jay Kimble - Thanks for posting this update. Where did you find the option to install offline content from the web so I'll know for the future?