What do you mean "type help"?

help() is added by the site module, if you've done something to skip running the site module it won't be added.

Can you give an example of what you are trying to do, what happens and what you expected?

Are you running in IDLE or the regular REPL?

Hi Steven,

On Thursday, I gave a python training with some Windows computers and I have executer python, just the REPL, normally, you have 

Python 3.6.5 (default, Apr  4 2018, 15:01:18) 
[GCC 7.3.1 20180303 (Red Hat 7.3.1-5)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 

But I didn't see the message with "help" in the prompt on the Windows computer. I would like to confirm with the standard bundle of python.org but I don't have a windows computer. and I didn't check the author of this bundle, but it was the 3.6.x version.

Can't recreate from latest Python 3.6.5 downloaded off python.org

  > D:\Python365\python.exe
  Python 3.6.5 (v3.6.5:f59c0932b4, Mar 28 2018, 16:07:46) [MSC v.1900 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

I suspect you either had a non-python.org version of Python, or had the embeddable distribution rather than a proper installation (the embeddable distribution should not be used unless you're embedding, hence the name :)).  Either way, the standard distribution started normally imports site by default, which monkeypatches `help` into builtins on all platforms.

Hi Zach, in fact, it's not a problem with Python itself, but with Idle.

I just downloaded a virtualbox image via (https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/) and started the installation of Python 3.6.5

and when you execute IDLE, "help()" is not present, but this sentence is present in the prompt of python3.

I am going to provide a small patch.

PR proposed

New changeset 9d49f85064c388e2dddb9f8cb4ae1f486bc8d357 by Terry Jan Reedy (Stéphane Wirtel) in branch 'master':
bpo-33856: Add "help" to the welcome message of IDLE (GH-7755)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/9d49f85064c388e2dddb9f8cb4ae1f486bc8d357

Thanks for the clarification.

>>> help works

but is not in the sign-on message, even though it is by far the most important item mentioned.  I just merged to master.

New changeset 6bb770445192e19aef94111c6a9913e1526c4d64 by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.7':
bpo-33856: Add "help" to the welcome message of IDLE (GH-7755)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/6bb770445192e19aef94111c6a9913e1526c4d64

New changeset 25531fb7b8338a21cdcdf2ce0f981d781d21641f by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.6':
bpo-33856: Add "help" to the welcome message of IDLE (GH-7755)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/25531fb7b8338a21cdcdf2ce0f981d781d21641f

New changeset c488558faaff4ffa44ba20e0c1f1fc8f18fe722f by Terry Jan Reedy in branch '2.7':
[2.7] bpo-33856: Add "help" to the welcome message of IDLE (GH-7755) (GH-7758)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/c488558faaff4ffa44ba20e0c1f1fc8f18fe722f