Using the PowerCLI About Articles

Learn about PowerCLI concepts and features from the built-in help articles named About Articles. You can access them through a running PowerCLI process.

Running Help About_* lists all built-in PowerShell and VMware PowerCLI About Articles.

Table 1. Built-In About Articles for PowerCLI

Article Title	Command	Article Description
Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)	Help About_CEIP	Provides information about VMware's Customer Experience Improvement Program ("CEIP").
Handling Invalid Certificates	Help About_Invalid_Certificates	When you connect to a server, VMware PowerCLI checks if the server certificate is valid. If the certificate is not trusted for this server, by default, VMware PowerCLI fails to connect to the server.
Object-by-Name (OBN)	Help About_OBN	To help you save time and effort, PowerCLI lets you select objects by their names.
VMware PowerCLI Objects	Help About_PowerCLI_Objects	For their input and output, the PowerCLI cmdlets use a set of .NET types that reside in the VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types namespace.
Using the RunAsync Parameter	Help About_RunAsync	When you set the RunAsync parameter, you indicate that you want to run the cmdlet asynchronously.
Authenticating with a vCenter Server System or a VMware Cloud Director Server	Help About_Server_Authentication	To authenticate with vCenter Server and VMware Cloud Director servers, you can provide a user name and password through the User and Password parameters, or a PSCredential object through the Credential parameter.
Unique Identifiers for PowerCLI Objects (UID)	Help About_UID	You can uniquely identify a PowerCLI object on a server or across multiple servers by providing its UID.
Datastore Provider (VimDatastore)	Help About_VimDatastore	The Datastore Provider (VimDatastore) provides a filesystem-style view and access to the contents of datastores.
LicenseDataManager	Help About_LicenseDataManager	The LicenseDataManager component lets you extend the vCenter Server inventory with license data.