I was looking into creating some help and tutorial documentation for an app I am working on in plain HTML instead of Windows Help or even HTML Help (plain HTML is easier to maintain) and was wondering what the best method for displaying this information from within a VB app is.

I checked out using the Microsoft Intenet Control (SHDOCVW.DLL) to basically build a form into my app that would basically be a mini web browser just for the help info. This approach looks fine except for the distribution of the finished app. Will each user have to have the same version of IE, that I have, installed on their machine, or will distributing the SHDOCVW.DLL be enough? And will that DLL mess up someone's desktop with an older version of IE?

The other option I considered was just dropping the HTML files onto the user's hard drive and either letting them use the browser of their choice and/or shelling out from the VB app by just launching the "index.htm" for example (so whatever browser the user has associated with .HTM files will be launched). This option's downsides are the fact that it isn't as nice as the first option (forcing the launch of whatever web browser the user has installed) and if they don't have any browser installed (and who doesn't by now?) the help won't even come up.

What's your thoughts on this?