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Powershell Version: 5.0.10586.494

I just began working with powershell this weekend and I discovered that I cannot find any help files when using the shell, for example, I was looking to read the about_Comparison_Operators help file but it seems as though the console cannot find it.

When doing: Get-Help About_* the only result I get is About_CimSession... it seems like there are no other help files?

This TechNet article suggests that in Powershell v3 the module must be imported,

To download or update the help files for a module in Windows PowerShell 3.0, use the Update-Help cmdlet.

I don't know if it's the same deal in my case? I've used the update-help cmdlet (as admin) and it does not seem to effect the help files.

Thanks!

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I've been running PS as admin while trying to update help. This runs without error, but the help files remain untouched.

UPDATE: Still no luck, tried updating help by specifying language using the UICulture parameter but this didn't make a difference. Will keep this post updated if I find a fix.

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    You need to start powershell as administrator and then call the Update-Help otherwise when it is finish downloading all the help files it will not be able to update them. UpdatableHelpSystemRequiresElevation Commented Sep 5, 2016 at 22:49
  • I've been running Powershell as admin, Update-Help hasn't done anything regarding the help files, it updates without error... but the help files are untouched. Commented Sep 5, 2016 at 22:59
  • check this stackoverflow.com/a/34925128/5233410 Commented Sep 5, 2016 at 23:17
  • Tried the command Update-Help -UICulture (Get-Culture).Name as suggested in the post linked above, it seemed to have ran correctly but did not make any changes to the help files. I've got about 7 GB free on the system drive as well, so that shouldn't be a problem either. Commented Sep 5, 2016 at 23:41
  • Also see this, with some troubleshooting hints: blogs.technet.microsoft.com/heyscriptingguy/2012/08/31/… Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 11:09

2 Answers 2

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Update: PowerShell updatable help is no longer broken. About_ helpfiles are now downloaded with the correct extension. The formatting of these plaintext files still doesn't equal the old versions, however.

PowerShell updatable help is currently broken. PS5 doesn't ship with those about_* helpfiles, and if you update-help to download them, they aren't stored with the appropriate file extension, so get-help doesn't read them.

Only recently were these files being downloaded at all, so if you haven't tried in a while you should still do update-help -force in an elevated session. Then, see this answer for a one-liner that will rename the files correctly: https://superuser.com/a/1134681/4782

However, due to a (probably) unrelated issue, these new help files have some mangled text formatting that makes them very difficult to read any time a table-like layout is being used. If you'd like instead to grab the PS4-era about_* files with proper formatting and use those instead, an alternative solution can be found here: https://github.com/kilasuit/Install-AboutHelp. Note that this solution will unzip an archive of about_* files to the en\ locale folder, which may not be your default locale (mine is en-US\, for example). This will work fine since the en\ location will be used as a fallback as long as the desired document doesn't exist in your default locale's folder.

Further reference:

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After not even attempting to update the help files for the past month, I just ran update-help -force and this managed to pull all the About_* help files, I now have all the help files I was looking for. Not sure what caused this but your answer was a big help, thank you.
Yes, this changed just a couple of days ago. All of the help files are now available for collaboration on GitHub as well. I still have some issues with the formatting, but it's a step in the right direction.
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FOR non-English OS only

If you are using PowerShell v5 on an operating system that has not the "en-US" language settings then update-help tries to download the help files for your language which might not be available. Use:

Update-Help -UICulture "en-US"

in an elevated (admin) console.

Background

You can check your language setting with the cmdlet get-culture. In my case I get:

PS C:\> Get-Culture LCID Name DisplayName ---- ---- ----------- 1031 de-DE Deutsch (Deutschland)

and at least today (20.7.2017) there are help-files missing (for example get-services). Note that the get-help applet will still first look for help files in your language before it will resort to "en-US" Quelle (in Deutsch).

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