Trouble with CS5 off-line help install

Question

Hello,
I can't access help files after having recently purchased and installed several copies of CS5 Web Premium.
Here's the situation: military site with closed (non-internet) network needs CS5 to replace existing CS3 installation. Windows 32-bit. A stand-alone internet computer with cd-r drive is available, but I can't install anything on it. See the problem?
I've already read a number of threads on this subject and all the relevant KB articles that I could find (including 84215 and 83703). I downloaded the PDF manuals individually (much later I found http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2010/08/help-documents-for- creative-suite-5-pdf-and-html.html, which points to all of them in one place - that should be linked from the support site). Adobe phone support could not help beyond suggesting download of the PDFs.
My developers are used to being able to hit F1 and search help, specifically in Flash for ActionScript language reference. The external PDF manuals, while useful, are not an option for this purpose - just too clumsy.
As I understand it, the first time Adobe Community Help is run, it can optionally download all html help files for offline use. Since I can't connect the development computers to the internet, I need to download an archive of those files from elsewhere.
It seems like I need to either:
a) Find a magical adobe.com page with an archive of the html help files that I can download
-or-
b) Go home and download (on my mac) the applicable portions of adobe.com and burn to CD
     (e.g. http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flash/cs/using/index.html)
-then-
c) Find the appropriate file location to install these files on my development computers
d) Update any TOC or preference files so that the CS5 apps will know that the files are installed locally.
I could also just download the html files and put them on an internal web server, but this isn't preferred since then it wouldn't be connected to the CS5 apps, unless I can point them to an arbitrary web address for when my users hit F1 for help.
It seems like this would be a problem not just for military users but for any company that uses development computers not connected to the internet.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
- Jim Grisham, United States Navy
P.S.
Not sure if it's related, but in Flash Professional CS5 when attempting to request help from the menu I receive the following error:
<Windows Internet Explorer>
Cannot find 'file:///C:/Program%20Files/Common%20Files/Adobe/Help/en_US/Flash/CS5 /AS3LR/index.html
I think that's after telling Community Help to work offline. In Photoshop, I get no such error, just a message that I need to access the internet to download help.

Answer 1

Hi Jim:  you could try either approach (either hosting on your own intranet or copy the local help files to each machine). Here's some info that may help:
1. the Help application relies on a small XML file called the Help Configuration file (.helpcfg). There is one for each product located in the user's Local Store.
On Windows, look in C:\Documents and Settings\ * USER NAME* \ApplicationData\ chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1\Local Store\HelpCfg\en_US
On Mac, look in USER NAME (Home) > Library > Preferences > chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1 > Local Store > HelpCfg> en_US
2. The Help Config file tells the app two very important things:
Where to look for online content
Where to look for download content
There are a few other variables managed by the file but those two are the most important.
3. Open the Help Config with a text editor and look for the following property: baseUrl="http://help.adobe.com/"
4. Now look a little further down in the file and you should see a number of "package" elements.  Each package represents a distinct help book (i.e. "Using Flash CS 5"). The path variable is where the online HTML is located. For example, path="en_US/Flash/CS5/Using"  
5. Look further below and you will see a variable called, downloadContent. For example, downloadContent="client.Flash_CS5_Using_en-us.zip"
6. If you put these three elements together (baseURL + path + downloadContent), you can parse the location for each downloadable help archive like so: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flash/CS5/Using/client.Flash_CS5_Using_en-us.zip
So what does this mean for you? What you could do is manually download the help files and host them on your own intranet -- you can then alter the baseURLs in the Help Configs to point to your own server. This would require editing each and every HelpConfig file so this may not be scalable for a very large team. 
Or, you could go home, fire up the Help app, download the Help content outside of your network and then copy the entire Help folder back into the Local Store for each user. The app will automatically default to local Help if it cannot detect an internet connection so your team should be able to access just fine as long as the files are in the Help folder of your Local Store. No additional edits to the config file required. 
For your convenience, here are a few additional package URLs relevant for the Web Suite - these are the default packages that a user is prompted to download on first launch. There are many other packages defined in the help configs so there may be additional books relevant to your team.
Photoshop:  http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/CS5/Using/client.Photoshop_CS5_Using_en-us.zip
Illustrator: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Illustrator/CS5/Using/client.Illustrator_CS5_Using_en-us.zip
Dreamweaver: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Dreamweaver/CS5/Using/client.Dreamweaver_CS5_Using_en-us.zip
Fireworks: http://help.adobe.com/en_US_Fireworks_11.0_Using/client.Fireworks_CS5_Using_en-us.zip
Flash Builder (aka Flex):
Using Flash Builder: http://help.adobe.com/en_US_Flex_4.0_UsingFlashBuilder/client.Flex_4.0_UsingFlashBuilder_e n-us.zip
ActionScript 3.0 Language and Component Reference:      http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AS3LCR/Flex_4.0/Flex_4.0_en-us.zip
Using Adobe Flex 4:   http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flex/4.0/UsingSDK/client.Flex_4.0_UsingSDK_en-us.zip
Accessing data with Flex 4:    http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flex/4.0/AccessingData/client.Flex_4.0_AccessingData_en-us.zip     
LiveCycle Service Discovery: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flex/4.0/LCServiceDiscovery/client.Flex_4.0_LCServiceDiscovery _en-us.zip
Flash
Using Flash CS5:   http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flash/CS5/Using/client.Flash_CS5_Using_en-us.zip     
ActionScript 3.0 Reference for the Flash Platform: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flash/CS5/AS3LR/Flash_CS5_en-us.zip