Get-Help

PowerShell · Reference cheat sheet

📋 Overview

Get-Help is the built-in manual for cmdlets, functions, and about topics. Learning to read help is faster than memorizing every parameter. Update help once so examples are available offline.

🔧 Core concepts

Tab completion and Get-Command *Item* pair well with help.

💡 Examples

Basic help:

Get-Help Get-ChildItem
Get-Help Get-ChildItem -Examples
Get-Help Get-ChildItem -Parameter Filter

Discover commands then read help:

Get-Command *process*
Get-Help Get-Process -Full

About topics (concepts):

Get-Help about_Pipelines
Get-Help about_Variables
Get-Help about_* | Select-Object -First 10

Update help (may need admin for some scopes):

Update-Help -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

⚠️ Pitfalls

• Fresh installs often have minimal help until Update-Help runs.
• Help for third-party modules only appears after the module is installed/imported.
• -Online needs a browser and network.
• Alias help: Get-Help ls works, but learning Get-ChildItem is clearer long-term.

🔗 Related

• getting_started.md
• hello_world.md
• aliases_basics.md
• cmdlets.md