Not quite clear why you do not want to use shellexec, but here is another option:

run hh.exe C:\WINNT\Help\INET98.CHM

>I am needing to open a html help .chm file from VFP 5 and 6. I that that I'll have to use API calls to do this, wish I was using 7.0, but that is not an option at this point.
>
>Anyone done this with 5.0?