Even experienced PowerShell users often ignore that PowerShell comes with an excellent help system, much similar to the man pages in Linux. All you need to do is download the help files once. For this, you need to run the line below in a PowerShell with elevated privileges:
PS> Update-Help -UICulture en-us -Force
Once the help files are downloaded, here’s the list of awesome background topics that explain almost every detail of the PowerShell language:
PS> Get-Help about* | Select Name, Synopsis Name Synopsis ---- -------- about_ActivityCommonParameters Describes the parameters that Windows... about_Aliases Describes how to use alternate names ... about_Arithmetic_Operators Describes the operators that perform ... about_Arrays Describes arrays, which are data stru... about_Assignment_Operators Describes how to use operators to ass... about_Automatic_Variables Describes variables that store state ... about_Break Describes a statement you can use to ... about_Checkpoint-Workflow Describes the Checkpoint-Workflow act... about_CimSession Describes a CimSession object and the... about_Classes Describes how you can use classes to ... about_Command_Precedence Describes how Windows PowerShell dete... about_Command_Syntax Describes the syntax diagrams that ar... about_Comment_Based_Help Describes how to write comment-based ... about_CommonParameters Describes the parameters ...
You can even create your own PowerShell Help viewer with this line of code:
Get-Help about* | Select-Object -Property Name, Synopsis | Out-GridView -Title 'Select Topic' -OutputMode Multiple | ForEach-Object { Get-Help -Name $_.Name -ShowWindow }
When you run it, PowerShell searches for help topics and opens a grid view. Simply hold CTRL and select all topics that you’d like to read, then click OK. The selected help topics open in separate help viewer windows.
