Following my post on why I think every Exchange administrator needs to know PowerShell, I was challenged to say what books someone should read to get up to speed on the topic. So here goes (click here to see my list of good technical books to read).

To begin, the fundamentals of PowerShell itself including command syntax and how to work with scripts are well covered in Windows PowerShell Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Scripting Microsoft’s New Command Shell or Windows PowerShell in Action, Second Edition  (the first edition of this book was what I used to learn PowerShell originally, way back when it was known as “Monad”). I also think that Windows PowerShell 2.0 delivers a lot of value. Any of these books will serve well as a starting point for your journey.

Moving to Exchange 2010, the best recommendation that I can give is to get a copy of Microsoft Exchange 2010 PowerShell Cookbook by Mike Pfeiffer. Mike is an Exchange MVP who has made many contributions to the Exchange community with well-written scripts and other snippets of PowerShell code, so it comes as no surprise that his book would be equally valuable. Remember that Exchange 2010 provides the essential underpinning for Exchange Online in Office 365, so a lot of what you will learn from this book can be applied in an Office 365 environment.

There’s a world of difference in PowerShell between Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 because of the expansion in cmdlets and the introduction of Remote PowerShell. However, if you need an Exchange 2007 PowerShell book, you could consider Professional Windows PowerShell for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (Programmer to Programmer) as it’s probably the best in the field.

Hopefully this answers the question!

– Tony