# Reading Help: Get-Help Get-Help shows a command's help page once Update-Help has downloaded it, and its examples, its syntax lines and the about\_ topics let you work out a command you've never seen before you run it. Apprentice · PowerShell · Updated November 10, 2026 ## After this lesson you can - Get a command's help with Get-Help, after Update-Help, and read its examples, its online page or an about\_ topic - Read a command's syntax lines, telling required and optional parameters, positional names, value types and switches ## Key takeaways - Run `Update-Help -Scope CurrentUser` once to download the help pages. It needs the internet, not an administrator. - `Get-Help Stop-Process -Examples` shows a command's examples, often the quickest way to learn what it does. - In a syntax line, square brackets mean optional, `` is the kind of value a parameter takes, and a parameter with no value is a switch. - `-Online` opens the newest help in your browser, and `about_` topics explain ideas rather than commands. A forum post says a stuck program can be closed with `Stop-Process -Name notepad`. That command doesn't only look: it closes a program, and anything unsaved in it is lost. Before you run a command that changes something, you want to know exactly what it does. Every PowerShell command comes with a help page, and `Get-Help` reads it. It's how experienced people work out a command they've never used, without leaving the terminal. ## First, download the help: Update-Help The help pages don't come with PowerShell; they're downloaded separately so they can be kept up to date. Until then, `Get-Help` shows only what it can work out by itself: ```powershell Get-Help Stop-Process ``` ```text NAME Stop-Process SYNTAX Stop-Process [-Id] [-PassThru] [-Force] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [] Stop-Process -Name [-PassThru] [-Force] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [] Stop-Process [-InputObject] [-PassThru] [-Force] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [] ALIASES spps kill REMARKS Get-Help cannot find the Help files for this cmdlet on this computer. It is displaying only partial help. -- To download and install Help files for the module that includes this cmdlet, use Update-Help. -- To view the Help topic for this cmdlet online, type: "Get-Help Stop-Process -Online" or go to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=2097058. ``` To download the full pages, run this once, with an internet connection. It takes a minute or two: ```powershell Update-Help -Scope CurrentUser ``` `-Scope CurrentUser` saves the help in your own Documents folder, so it **needs no administrator**. That's what PowerShell 7 does anyway; writing it out makes it plain. `-Scope AllUsers` installs it for everyone on the computer, and that needs PowerShell opened with **Run as administrator**, which you don't need for this. A red message about one or two modules whose help couldn't be found is normal; the rest still installs. Run it again every month or so for the newest pages. **Windows PowerShell 5.1** has no `-Scope`: there, `Update-Help` always needs an administrator window. ## Examples first: -Examples A full help page is long. Start with the examples, real commands with a sentence or two on what each does: ```powershell Get-Help Stop-Process -Examples ``` ```text NAME Stop-Process SYNOPSIS Stops one or more running processes. --------- Example 1: Stop all instances of a process --------- ``` Under each title comes the command, between two lines of backticks, and then what it does. Example 1 is the forum's command, `Stop-Process -Name "notepad"`, and the help says it *stops all instances of the Notepad process on the computer*: every Notepad window, not one of them. That's worth knowing before you press Enter. `-Detailed` adds a description of every parameter, and `-Full` shows everything. ## Reading the syntax lines The SYNTAX lines show every way a command can be written, one line for each. `Get-Command` shows the same lines, help or no help: ```powershell Get-Command Stop-Process -Syntax ``` ```text Stop-Process [-Id] [-PassThru] [-Force] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [] Stop-Process -Name [-PassThru] [-Force] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [] Stop-Process [-InputObject] [-PassThru] [-Force] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [] ``` Square brackets, `[ ]`, are read "optional". The rest is read like this: - **`-Name `**, with no brackets, is required on that line. `` is the kind of value it takes: `string` is text, and `[]` means one or more, separated by commas. - **`[-Id] `** has brackets around the name only, so the name is optional but the value isn't: `Stop-Process 4120` is allowed, because the value sits in the first position. `int` is a whole number. - **`[-Force]`** has no `` after it, so it's a switch. - **`[]`** are a few parameters every cmdlet has. `Get-Help about_CommonParameters` lists them. Each line is a different way to name the process: by its `Id`, by its `Name`, or by a process handed to it. You use one line at a time. ## Online help and about\_ topics `Get-Help Stop-Process -Online` opens the same page in your web browser, always the newest version, with no download needed. Some help is about ideas rather than commands. Those pages are the **about_ topics** (read "about topics"): `Get-Help about_Wildcards` explains the `*` from *Finding a Command: Get-Command*, and `Get-Help about_Command_Syntax` explains syntax lines in more detail. It starts like this: ```powershell Get-Help about_Command_Syntax ``` ```text ABOUT_COMMAND_SYNTAX Short description Describes the syntax diagrams that are used in PowerShell. ``` `Get-Help about_*` lists every topic, more than 150 of them once the help is downloaded. `help`, a short form of `Get-Help`, shows a page a screen at a time: Space for the next screen, Q to stop. **On a Mac or Linux**, all of this works the same; `-Scope AllUsers` needs `sudo` there instead of an administrator. **Try it.** Run `Update-Help -Scope CurrentUser`, then `Get-Help Get-Service -Examples`. Which example gets only the services that are running? ## Check yourself 2 questions to try on the lesson page. ## So what You never have to guess what a command does before you run it. `Get-Help`, its examples and its syntax lines tell you, right in the terminal, for every command PowerShell has. ## Key terms - [Get-Help](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/get-help) - [Update-Help](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/update-help) - [Syntax](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/syntax-software-development) - [about\_ Topic](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/about-topic) ## Cheat sheets - [Reading Help: Get-Help](https://www.ask-codey.com/cheat-sheets/powershell-get-help-cheat-sheet) ## Related - [Finding a Command: Get-Command](https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/powershell-get-command) - [Parameters, Values and Switches](https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/powershell-parameters) Source: https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/powershell-get-help