Microsoft Advisor Help

File Format
Name	Microsoft Advisor Help
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Help files Microsoft Advisor Help
Extension(s)	.hlp

Microsoft Advisor Help file is an old help file format used by Microsoft's MS-DOS development tools. It is distinct from Windows HLP format.

Identification

Known files begin with 4c 4e 02 00 ?? 00 3a 00, where the fifth byte may be 00 or 01.

See Also

• Microsoft Quick Help, a different format used by older software

Specifications

• https://github.com/fancidev/DosHelp/blob/master/QuickHelp/Serialization/Format.txt

Software

• https://github.com/fancidev/DosHelp (although it talks about Quick Help, it actually describes the Advisor Help format)

Sample files

• QBASIC.HLP as shipped with MS-DOS 5.0 and 6.x
• Examples found on the web: [1], [2], [3]
• dexvert samples — document/microsoftAdvisorHelp

Resources

• Microsoft Professional Advisor Library Reference