How to Get-Help in Powershell

23 Feb. 2021 | Updated 7 Mar. 2021 | 2 min read.

This article covers how to use the powershell command 'Get-Help'

If there is ever a good starting point for learning Powershell, it's with the Get-Help command. Put simply, you can use this command to get help with any other command.

As an example, let's find out more about the Get-Service command:

Get-Help Get-Service

Which provides all of the arguments, and available flags that can be used with the Get-Service command:

PS C:\Users\slloy> Get-Help Get-Service

NAME
    Get-Service
    
SYNTAX
    Get-Service [[-Name] <string[]>] [-ComputerName <string[]>] [-DependentServices] [-RequiredServices] [-Include <string[]>] [-Exclude <string[]>]  [<CommonParameters>]
    
    Get-Service -DisplayName <string[]> [-ComputerName <string[]>] [-DependentServices] [-RequiredServices] [-Include <string[]>] [-Exclude <string[]>]  [<CommonParameters>]
    
    Get-Service [-ComputerName <string[]>] [-DependentServices] [-RequiredServices] [-Include <string[]>] [-Exclude <string[]>] [-InputObject <ServiceController[]>]  [<CommonParameters>]

ALIASES
    gsv
    

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 Get-Service 
    -Online" or 
           go to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=113332.

Alternatively, you can use the shorthand (-?):

Get-Service -?

You can also use Get-Help with the individual nouns and verbs. For instance, if we wanted to find all of the verbs available for the noun 'Service', we could do this:

Get-Help *-Service
PS C:\Users\slloy> Get-Help *-Service

Name                              Category  Module                    Synopsis
----                              --------  ------                    --------
Get-Service                       Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.M... ...
New-Service                       Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.M... ...
Restart-Service                   Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.M... ...
Resume-Service                    Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.M... ...
Set-Service                       Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.M... ...
Start-Service                     Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.M... ...
Stop-Service                      Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.M... ...
Suspend-Service                   Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.M... ...

Alternatively, we could find out all of the commands available under the GET verb, using Get-*

Get-Help Get-*
Get-Help Get-*

Name                              Category  Module                    Synopsis
----                              --------  ------                    -------- 
Get-Service                       Function
Get-IseSnippet                    Function  ISE
Get-FileHash                      Function  Microsoft.PowerShell.U... ...
Get-Command                       Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.Core ...
Get-Help                          Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.Core ...
Get-History                       Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.Core ...
Get-Job                           Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.Core ...
Get-Module                        Cmdlet    Microsoft.PowerShell.Core ...
#...plus, many, many more
Powershell