CUSTOMER-DEFINABLE HELP FILE

Custom user help information distinctive of a customer's computing environment is made available to users of a software system through the system's help facility. Creators of the software system (110) include an uncompressed modifiable and user-accessible "custom information" user help file (113) in the software system, but leave the user help file empty, devoid of any custom information. For installation of the software system at a particular customer's site (101), a user or an administrator (115) of the site populates the user help file with the custom information distinctive of that site, and thereby makes the information a part of the software system. Users of the software executing at the site can then access the custom information in the user help file by selecting a pointer (114) to that user help file from a help menu (112) of the executing software system, just like any other user help information.