Microsoft PowerShell Help System

In this article I will explain briefly about the different ways of using "help" in PowerShell. "Help" is the most important and useful thing that you should be familiar with while kick-starting PowerShell (PS) learning. This post is aimed at beginners who are new to PS.

If you are using PS Version 3.0 or higher you can always update the help system online. To check the version of PS: $PSVersionTable

To update help online: update-help -Force

This will download and install latest help content on your machine.

Now, lets have a quick look at how the PS cmdlets are organized. Take the example of update-help itself and you can see its a verb-noun format. Update is a verb which is an action and help is the noun. 

If you are not sure about the different verbs available in PS, list all the verbs using: get-verb 

To find out all the 'Get' commands, you can simply use: get-help Get*

Lets pick Get-Service as an example and want to know more about this cmdlet. You can use the help system in the following ways.

Get-Help Get-Service

Get-Help Get-Service -Detailed

Get-Help Get-Service -Full

Get-Help Get-Service -Examples

Get-Help Get-Service -ShowWindow

Get-Help Get-Service -Online

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