One of my students, Khaw Jun Cong found a solution to the problem of
opening chm files in Vista/Windows 7:
I have just found out how to open it correctly in the internet. It seems like due to the security "feature" in our OS. It can be view after right click on the file and choose "properties" and at the bottom of the properties there is an unblock word, choose unblock and it can be view after pressing the "apply" button, here is a link which help me solve this problem.http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/581253.aspx
Thanks to Jun Cong for sharing!