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Microsoft has released Windows Vista to manufacturing in anticipation of a November 30 business launch and a wider January 2007 launch to consumers.

Vista includes the new Assistance Platform Help 1.0 with content for the Help and Support Center. Only Microsoft, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and corporate users will be able to customize this help content for the operating system and OEM help.

AP Help 2.x is not available yet. Microsoft no longer have immediate plans to release a public version of AP Help. So, Microsoft has not decided if it will be an assistance platform for third-party vendors or another Microsoft-only platform.

Within Business Desktop Deployment 2007 (BDD 2007) is the AP Help SDK. This is primarily for integrating Microsoft and OEM help content into Vista Help. It is not recommended for general use. BDD can be run on Windows XP but you will need Vista (and possibly Win 2003 SP1 server) to test the output. See BDD 2007 Download.

Just one week after shipping a surprisingly stable, full-featured, and bug-free pre-Release Candidate 1 (RC1) version of Windows Vista, Microsoft released Vista RC1 to the public. And in the days and weeks ahead, an astonishing number of people will be running this Vista version. Microsoft says it plans to deliver Vista RC1 to more than 6 million people.
RC1 includes the new Assistance Platform Help 1.x.

Microsoft is rethinking its strategy with regard to Windows Vista Help. There are no decisions to announce, but it’s possible that MAML (which they’re now calling just AML) will not ever be widely available as an authoring platform. Microsoft is currently researching how software developers can best supported in creating Help in subsequent releases of Windows.