There are several changes to the documentation for SQL2012,one of which is that documentation does not ship on the installation media. The standard way of handling documentation is to either manually install documentation locally using the GUI tool the first time the documentation is accessed, or opting to use online documentation.
Customers who have multiple SQL Servers without internet access may want to install SQL2012(including local documentation) from the command prompt. Following is a procedure that can be used to accomplish this.
This procedure can be performed after completion of the “normal” SQL2012 installation (including the BOL components).
Steps for Installing SQL2012 Documentation Locally from the Command Prompt
Download the SQL2012 documentation from the Microsoft Download Center.
Run the executable to extract the documentation files. You can specify the location of the extracted files.
Create a new folder “C:\SQLDoc” and copy the extracted files to it (don’t copy the extracted folder, only the contents of the folder). The files to copy will look something like this:
Run the following command to install the SQL2012 documentation locally:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Help Viewer\v1.0\HelpLibManager.exe" /Product SQLServer /Version 110 /Locale en-US /BrandingPackage SQLServerHelpBranding.mshc /SourceMedia C:\SQLDoc\HelpContentSetup.msha /Silent
You may want to put the folder containing the extracted documentation (see step above) on a file share (and modify the “SourceMedia” parameter in the command) to facilitate the installation of documentation on multiple machines.
The first time you access the documentation you will be asked whether you view help content on the internet; select “No”. If you make a mistake here, you can go to “Microsoft SQL Server 2012\Documentation & Community\Manage Help Settings” and select “local help”.
