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.
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: