Powershell Best Practice #16: Update the help

Best Practice: It is recommended to update the help on a regular basis.

Explanation:

You have to run Powershell as an administrator to update the help : Update-Help -Force

You have different ways to automate the update of the help:

Profile

notepad.exe $profile
Update-Help -Force

1 2	notepad.exe $profile Update-Help -Force

Scheduled Job

$dailyTrigger = New-JobTrigger -Daily -At "01:00 PM"
Register-ScheduledJob -Name UpdateHelp -ScriptBlock {Update-Help -Force} -Trigger $dailyTrigger

1 2	$dailyTrigger = New-JobTrigger -Daily -At "01:00 PM" Register-ScheduledJob -Name UpdateHelp -ScriptBlock {Update-Help -Force} -Trigger $dailyTrigger

To list the scheduled jobs :

# PowerShell
Get-ScheduledJob

# MMC
Taskschd.msc
\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell\Scheduled Jobs

# PowerShell

Get-ScheduledJob

# MMC

Taskschd.msc

\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell\Scheduled Jobs

GPO

You can use Save-Help to download help files to a share for example and then deploy through GPO.

It is useful for computers without Internet connection for example.

# The folder will contain CAB and XML files.
Update-Help –SourcePath '\\server\share\helpfiles\'

1 2	# The folder will contain CAB and XML files. Update-Help –SourcePath '\\server\share\helpfiles\'

Set the default source path for Update-Help
Computer Configuration >Administrative Templates >Windows Components >Windows

Note: With the ISESteroids add-on (Tobias Weltner), you can update the help with the cmdlet: Update-SteroidsHelp

It will open a new window running the Update-Help -Force as an administrator.