Jan 9 2011 7:40AM GMT

PowerShell Books

Richard Siddaway Profile: Richard Siddaway

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There are a lot of PowerShell books on the market. Whether you are just starting with PowerShell, want to dig further into the subject or need some help with using PowerShell with a particular product it is often helpful to find a book on the subject instead of learning from scratch.

NOTE: This is my own personal view of the books. There are other books available. Some I have looked at and won’t recommend others I have not yet looked at. I am also restricting my list to English language books

These are the books I would recommend. I use many of these on a regular basis.

Title	Author	Publisher	ISBN
Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches	Don Jones	Manning	978161790213
Windows PowerShell Scripting Guide	Ed Wilson	Microsoft Press	9780735622791
Windows PowerShell Cookbook First Edition Second Edition	Lee Holmes	O’Reilly	9780596528492 9780596801502
Windows PowerShell 2.0 Best Practices	Ed Wilson	Microsoft Press	9780735626461
PowerShell in Practice	Richard Siddaway	Manning	9781935182009
PowerShell and WMI	Richard Siddaway	Manning	9781617290114
Managing Active Directory with Windows PowerShell	Jeffery Hicks	Sapien Press	0977659798
Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell	Hal Rottenberg	Sapien Press	0982131402
PowerShell in Action First Edition Second Edition	Bruce Payette	Manning	1932394-90-7 9781935182139

Comments:

Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches by Don Jones. This is still being written at the time of posting. It is a beginners guide to PowerShell. If you haven’t used PowerShell before this is the place to start.

Windows PowerShell Scripting Guide by Ed Wilson. This takes over where Don’s book stops. It supplies a good introduction to automating basic windows admin tasks with PowerShell

Windows PowerShell Cookbook by Lee Holmes. Now in its second edition it supplies a lot of scripts for using PowerShell. This book is PowerShell orientated and doesn’t cover using Exchange, AD etc. The techniques are useful for using with some of the more advanced or technology specific books.

Windows PowerShell 2.0 Best Practices by Ed Wilson. Builds on his Scripting Guide and contains good information on designing and testing scripts. Even if you don’t agree with all of the ideas they are worth reading to make you think about how you want to perform these tasks in your organisation.

PowerShell in Practice I wrote as a “PowerShell for Administrators” book. Contains lots of examples for working with AD, WMI, DNS, IIS, Exchange, SQL Server and Hyper-V. I wrote it but I still refer to it for syntax & ideas.

PowerShell and WMI is still being written. WMI is a really powerful technology but the lack of documentation and the difficulty of using it in the past has meant admins have been reluctant to use it. This book is designed to shine a light on to WMI, make it accessible and provide many ready to use scripts

Managing AD with Windows PowerShell by Jeffery Hicks. A second edition is in preparation. This overlaps with PowerShell in Practice to some extent but if you just want to automate AD then start here.

Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell by Hal Rottenberg. If you are using VMware you need this. Admin becomes a lot easier.

PowerShell in Action by Bruce Payette. This is the book for the in depth details on the PowerShell language. If you want to know how and why PowerShell works the way it does this is the book for you. Be aware that it is an advanced text and is NOT recommended for PowerShell newcomers.

This is my view of the PowerShell book world. No doubt other people will have different views. If you think I’ve missed a book that should be one this list please let me know but I will only recommend books I have read.