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Using the Get-Help Cmdlet

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Getting Help

Windows PowerShell includes two basic types of help - command help and conceptual help - both of which can be accessed from the console using the Get-Help cmdlet. To retrieve a list of all available help topics simply type the following command:

Get-Help *

That will bring back a list similar to this:

Name                       Category                   Synopsis
----                       --------                   --------
ac                         Alias                      Add-Content
asnp                       Alias                      Add-PSSnapin
clc                        Alias                      Clear-Content
cli                        Alias                      Clear-Item
clp                        Alias                      Clear-ItemProperty

Once you have that list you can then get help on the specific topic by passing the topic name to Get-Help. For example, suppose you’d like more information about the Get-Member cmdlet. In that case, simply use that command:

Get-Help Get-Member

By default help appears in the console window as one long, scrolling topic. If you’d prefer to view help a single page at a time, then pipe the results of the Get-Help cmdlet to more:

Get-Help Get-Member | more