Exchange 2010 Remote Management using Powershell

I've been doing a lot of work recently with Exchange 2010 and Powershell and have come across this neat way of managing the Exchange Server within your network from a remote client PC without having to install the Exchange Management Tools and do it through the GUI.


You need to complete these commands from a Windows 7 client machine (or any machine that has Powershell installed) for it to work.


Firstly, you need to enable remote scripts to run on your Windows 7 machine by typing the following command from an elevated Powershell prompt:

Set-executionpolicy remotesigned

At this point, it's worth trying to input an administrative Exchange Powershell command into your client to see if it understands it. Try entering something like:  get-mailbox

Your Windows 7 client will come back with an error stating that the command is not recognisable as an internal Powershell cmdlet - this is correct as we haven't imported the Exchange 2010 session into the local client's Powershell Library yet

Once the 'set-executionpolicy remotesigned' command is completed, enter the following commands to get control of your Exchange 2010 server:

$session = New-PSSession –ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange –ConnectionUri http://servername.domainname.local/PowerShell -Authentication Kerberos

(This command makes contact with the Exchange 2010 server and initiates a new Powershell session -don't forget to substitute your own servername and domainname into the line above!)

Import-PSSession $session

(This command then imports the new Powershell session into the local client library)

Now try to run the get-mailbox command again or any other Exchange 2010 Powershell command for that matter and you should now be able to work through administering your server remotely from your client pc!