Open HLP files in your browser
The help files of Windows 3.1, 95 and 98 programs, which Windows 10 and 11 no longer open. Open one right here, its contents beside its topics. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your help file opens at its first page, its contents beside it.
- Contents • Every topic a click away
- Filter topics by name
- Each page with its own pictures and styles
- Its scripts never run • Nothing loads from the web
About HLP
WinHelp came with Windows 3.0 in 1990, and until HTML Help took its place, nearly every Windows program shipped its manual as an .hlp file: topics with jumps between them, pop-ups, pictures and a contents tree. Windows Vista stopped including it, and Windows 10 and 11 can't open it at all.
An HLP file is a small file system of its own: its topics' text and formatting packed with LZ77 and a table of common phrases, its pictures as bitmaps or metafiles, its fonts, the names jumps point to and its keywords. The contents usually sit beside it in a .cnt file of the same name, a plain text list of the topics' headings.
Filepeek reads it with a reader of its own, which never runs its macros: each topic becomes a page with its fonts, colors, tables and pictures, jumps move between topics, and a .cnt dropped with it gives the contents, or else the topics' titles do.
WinHelp help file
.hlp
Format
- MIME type
- application/winhlp
- Made by
- Microsoft
- Released
- 1990
Inside the file
- Topics
- Text, tables and pictures, packed
- Pictures
- Bitmaps and metafiles
- Contents
- In a .cnt file beside it
- Made by
- Help Workshop and RoboHelp
Opens in every browser
Filepeek opens HLP files in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. No browser opens them, and neither do Windows 10 and 11.
- YouChromeOpens through Filepeek
- YouEdgeOpens through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxOpens through Filepeek
- YouSafariOpens through Filepeek
Apps that open HLP
- WindowsWinHlp32 on Windows 8.1 and older • Windows 10 and 11 can't open it
- MacNo app built in opens it
- iPhone and iPadNo app opens it
- AndroidNo app opens it
Questions
How do I open an HLP file on Windows 10 or 11?
Drop it on this page, with its .cnt file if it has one, or choose Peek an HLP. Windows 10 and 11 can't open WinHelp files, and Microsoft's WinHlp32 download stopped at Windows 8.1. Filepeek opens them in your browser.
Where are the contents?
Most help files keep their contents in a .cnt file with the same name. Drop both together and the contents show beside the topics, or else Filepeek lists the topics by their titles.
Do its macros run?
No. Filepeek shows the topics, pictures and jumps, and none of the help file's macros or the programs they call ever run.
Why doesn't my HLP open?
Help files made for Windows 3.0, the oldest kind, don't open. Those from Windows 3.1 on do, with their pictures and jumps.