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_U sing_en-us.zip

Illustrator: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Illustrator/CS5/Using/client.Illustrator_C S5_Using_en-us.zip

Dreamweaver: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Dreamweaver/CS5/Using/client.Dreamweaver_C S5_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_en-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_Acc essingData_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

Hi Jim:  can you check another location?  The CS installer places a set of 'bootstrap' config files into the following folder:

• C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\HelpCfg\

Hopefully, you should see some HelpCfg files in that directory.  Usually, the help app will rely on those bootstrap config files to connect to an initialization service to download new, updated Help Config into the Local Store. 

So I think the lack of network connectivity is the culprit.  My recommendation at this point would be to install the Suite on your Mac laptop and fire up the Help app at home (where the app can then connect to the initialization service, etc.).

On your Mac, you should then be able to download the Help content and updated config files into the proper locations. You can then zip up the entire Local Store on your Mac from:

• Home (user) > Library > Preferences > chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1 > Local Store

And then copy it over to the Windows machines at the corresponding location:

• C:\Documents and Settings\ * USER NAME* \ApplicationData\ chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1\

This way, you won't need to worry about downloading the help archives or placing them in the right directories, etc.