Chapter 3. Using the help system
In the first chapter of this book, I mentioned that discoverability is a key feature that makes graphical user interfaces (GUIs) easier to learn and use, and that command-line interfaces (CLIs) like PowerShell are often more difficult because they lack those discoverability features. In fact, PowerShell has fantastic discoverability features—they’re just not that obvious. One of the main discoverability features is the help system.
Bear with me for a minute while I climb up on a soapbox and preach to you.
We work in an industry that doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on reading, although we do have an acronym, RTFM, that we cleverly pass along to users when we wish they would “read the friendly manual.” Most administrators tend to dive right in, relying on things like tooltips, context menus, and so forth—those GUI discoverability tools—to figure out how to do something. I know that’s how I often work, and I imagine you do the same thing. Let me be clear about one thing:
If you aren’t willing to read PowerShell’s help files, you won’t be effective with PowerShell. You won’t learn how to use it, you won’t learn how to administer products like Windows and Exchange with it, and you might as well stick with the GUI.