10 PowerShell Books That Separate Experts from Amateurs

Lee Holmes, a security architect on the Azure Security team and an original PowerShell developer, draws on his deep operational and security expertise to craft this extensive guide. The book offers you over 400 practical recipes that address everyday tasks like filesystem navigation, file management, and web retrieval, plus advanced scripts for system and enterprise administration such as Active Directory handling. Updated through PowerShell 7.0, it also covers key technologies like .NET and WMI, helping you understand both the 'how' and the 'why' behind scripting solutions. This resource suits intermediate to advanced system administrators seeking ready-to-use scripts and a solid understanding of PowerShell's object-based pipeline.

Drawing from their deep involvement with PowerShell development and community leadership, authors Travis Plunk, James Petty, and Tyler Leonhardt present a practical guide that moves beyond Windows to embrace PowerShell's cross-platform capabilities on Linux and macOS. You’ll learn crucial skills like managing background jobs, automating repetitive tasks, and handling cloud services through clear, bite-sized lessons designed to fit into your lunch breaks. Specific chapters cover topics such as the pipeline mechanics, remote control sessions, and debugging techniques, making it suited for IT professionals stepping into scripting or expanding their automation toolkit. This book suits you if you want a hands-on, approachable path to mastering PowerShell across multiple operating systems without prior scripting experience.

This tailored PowerShell Mastery Blueprint explores the vast landscape of PowerShell, offering a richly personalized learning journey that matches your unique background and goals. It delves into core scripting concepts, automation techniques, and advanced module development, weaving them together to fit your specific interests and experience level. The book reveals how to navigate complex PowerShell environments effectively, enhancing your command over configuration management, error handling, and cross-platform scripting. By focusing on your individual needs, this personalized guide makes mastering PowerShell both approachable and deeply relevant, turning intricate expert knowledge into a coherent, targeted pathway for your skills to flourish.

After more than 15 years in cybersecurity, Miriam C. Wiesner crafts this guide from her extensive experience at Microsoft and in penetration testing. You’ll explore PowerShell’s dual role as both a powerful scripting language and a security tool, gaining insights into configuring remoting, analyzing event logs, and leveraging Windows internals for defense and attack. The book balances red and blue team perspectives, offering practical methods to detect threats, bypass controls, and fortify systems, with chapters like "Red Team Tasks" and "Blue Team Tasks" providing concrete examples. If you have a basic grasp of PowerShell and cybersecurity, this book sharpens your skills for real-world security operations.

Drawing from decades of hands-on experience dating back to the 1960s, Thomas Lee delivers a richly detailed guide for automating Windows Server tasks with PowerShell 7.1. You’ll learn to navigate complex environments like Active Directory, Hyper-V, and Azure through more than 100 practical recipes, including managing enterprise security, leveraging the .NET Framework, and debugging with Windows Management Instrumentation. The book doesn’t just list commands—it teaches you how to integrate these tools for managing Windows Server 2022/2019 efficiently. If you’re managing Windows infrastructure and want to deepen your automation skills beyond basics, this book offers a robust, real-world approach.

Drawing from over 15 years of IT management and consulting, Matthew Dowst crafted this book to push PowerShell beyond simple scripts into robust automation solutions suitable for enterprise environments. You’ll explore how to structure reusable code, secure credentials, and deploy automations across local and cloud systems using Azure Automation, Jenkins, and more. Chapters like "Making Adaptable Automations" and "Sharing Scripts Among a Team" provide concrete frameworks to elevate your scripting from isolated tasks to team-wide tools. If you manage backend systems and want to move past basics toward scalable, maintainable automation, this book offers a clear path forward.

This tailored book explores rapid PowerShell automation designed specifically for your environment and objectives. It covers foundational concepts and advanced scripting techniques, presenting a personalized roadmap that matches your background and addresses your goals. The content focuses on practical automation scenarios, efficient script development, and optimizing task workflows to accelerate your learning curve. By tailoring the material to your unique situation, this book reveals how to harness PowerShell's power effectively, minimizing trial-and-error and maximizing automation impact. You'll find guided sessions that examine real-world challenges and offer solutions aligned with your current skill level and desired outcomes, making your automation journey both engaging and efficient.

Bruce Payette, one of the original designers of PowerShell, teams up with longtime PowerShell MVP Richard Siddaway to provide a thorough exploration of the language’s capabilities. This book goes beyond basic scripting to cover deep concepts like module architecture, parallel execution, and Desired State Configuration, making it a strong fit for those looking to master PowerShell’s breadth. For example, the chapters on PowerShell workflows and advanced functions offer practical insights into automating complex tasks efficiently. If you’re an intermediate developer or administrator seeking to deepen your command-line skills on Windows and beyond, this guide will serve as a detailed technical companion.

Adam Bertram, with two decades in IT and recognized as a five-time Microsoft MVP, crafted this book to help sysadmins automate daily tasks using PowerShell. You’ll get hands-on guidance for combining commands, handling errors, and scripting across environments like Active Directory and AWS. The book moves beyond basic scripting, showing how to build PowerShell modules and fully automate Windows deployments, even constructing an Active Directory forest from scratch. If managing complex systems and streamlining workflows through scripting appeals to you, this book offers concrete skills and real-world examples that go beyond theory.

Lee Holmes's decades of hands-on experience with PowerShell shape this concise, portable guide tailored for busy administrators and scripters who need quick, reliable answers. Rather than overwhelming you with theory, Holmes zeroes in on practical command usage, scripting essentials, and key references like .NET string formatting and WMI classes, making it a handy desk companion. You'll find chapters that demystify regular expressions, XPath queries, and standard PowerShell verbs, helping you sharpen your scripting toolkit efficiently. If you want a no-fluff resource that bridges the gap between beginner and intermediate PowerShell user, this book serves that niche well, though it’s less suited for deep theoretical dives or advanced automation frameworks.

Unlike most PowerShell books that focus solely on command-line usage, this title pushes you to expand into scripting with practical examples and clear explanations. Don Jones and Jeffery Hicks bring their extensive training backgrounds to guide you through designing functions, managing errors, and building reusable script libraries, with chapters like "Dealing with errors" and "Building a basic function" standing out for their usefulness. You’ll also explore advanced topics such as accessing the .NET Framework and script signing, making it suitable for IT professionals ready to deepen their PowerShell skills beyond the basics. If you’re comfortable with PowerShell and want to automate and streamline your workflow, this book offers a structured path to scripting proficiency without unnecessary fluff.

Don Jones's decades of experience in technology education shine through in this thorough exploration of PowerShell tailored for administrators. You gain a deep dive into scripting techniques, command-line tools, and automation strategies that streamline complex system management tasks. The book breaks down advanced concepts like workflow automation and module development with clear examples, such as using Desired State Configuration in chapter 9. If you manage Windows environments or seek to sharpen your PowerShell skills beyond basics, this guide offers practical insights without assuming prior mastery, making it a valuable resource for mid-level to advanced IT professionals.