Adding and Removing Help Collections

Because Microsoft SQL Server can be used with different applications, SQL Server Books Online includes information about these applications. For example, in SQL Server you can:

• Create common language runtime (CLR) stored procedures and triggers against SQL Server databases.
• Write client tools for SQL Server Reporting Services using ASP.NET.

In these scenarios, it is useful to have access to documentation for development applications. Accordingly, SQL Server Books Online topics link to topics in these applications' Help collections where appropriate. In particular, many programming reference topics link to topics that are included in documentation for the .NET Framework.

Help Collections and SQL Server 2005

A Help collection is a set of Help topics. SQL Server Books Online is the primary Help collection included with SQL Server. In addition, the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Library is another Help collection included with SQL Server. A third documentation related item is the .NET Framework Software Development Kit (SDK), available as a free download.

By default, links are not functional between topics in the Books Online Help collection and topics in the documentation from the .NET Framework, or any other installed documentation. However, it is possible to enable these links by adding the appropriate Help collections to Books Online.

Install additional Help collections with SQL Server Books Online in order to consolidate your software library and enable links from Books Online to the .NET Framework SDK. The steps to install the MSDN Library and the .NET Framework SDK depend on what SQL Server 2005 components you use to access Books Online. For more information see, Installing the .NET Framework SDK

Adding the .NET Framework SDK to SQL Server Books Online

The way you add Help content to SQL Server Books Online collection depends on how you access SQL Server Books Online.

If you have SQL Server Books Online installed as a separate component or use SQL Server Management Studio, complete the following steps to enable the links from SQL Server Books Online to the .NET Framework SDK documentation:

1. Install the .NET Framework SDK documentation from this Microsoft website.
   -Or-
   Install the MSDN Library from the DVD included with SQL Server 2005.
2. Open the Combined Help Collection Manager and add the Help collection to SQL Server Books Online. For more information, see SQL Server 2005 Combined Help Collection Manager.

If you access SQL Server Books Online through the Business Intelligence Development Studio you can enable all of the links to MSDN Library by installing the MSDN Library. The installation process will automatically register the Help collection from MSDN Library with SQL Server Books Online in BI Development Studio.

Removing Help Collections

A similar approach can be used to remove Help collections from Books Online. In particular, you can remove the SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition documentation from SQL Server Books Online. To remove a Help collection, see SQL Server 2005 Combined Help Collection Manager.

To completely uninstall Books Online, open Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel, select Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and click Change. The Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Maintenance dialog box appears. Select Workstation Components in SQL Server 2005 common components and click Next. In the Setup wizard, click Change Installed Components, and then unselect SQL Server Books Online.

If you install Business Intelligence Development Studio, SQL Server Books Online, and the MSDN Library, two copies of Books Online appear in the table of contents: one of these was installed by the MSDN Library, and the other by SQL Server. To avoid duplicate search and index results, remove the MSDN Library copy of SQL Server Books Online. In Control Panel, open Add or Remove Programs, select MSDNLibrary for Visual Studio 2005, and click Change.

To remove SQL Server 2000 Books Online topics from search and index results, remove SQL Server 2000 Books Online from the MSDN Library. In Control Panel, open Add or Remove Programs, select MSDNLibrary for Visual Studio 2005, and click Change.