Exchange Management Shell (EMS) and new PowerShell releases
Some day ago, I installed a new Exchange 2013 CU11 for some test ins my lab. Nothing fancy, just a single server deployment on a Windows Server 2012 R2 VM. I deployed this Windows Server from a template, which was updated with the latest Windows Patches and WMF some days ago. The Exchange setup went smooth. I updated the SSL certificates and the internal and external URLs for the virtual directories. Then I started the Exchange Management Shell (EMS), to update the Autodiscover URL in the service connection point (SCP) of the Active Directory.
VERBOSE: Connecting to exchange1.lab.local.
New-PSSession : Cannot find path '' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:1
+ New-PSSession -ConnectionURI "$connectionUri" -ConfigurationName Micr ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : OpenError: (System.Manageme....RemoteRunspace:RemoteRunspace) [New-PSSession], RemoteException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PSSessionOpenFailed
Well… that doesn’t look successful. I quickly switched to a PowerShell windows and imported the Exchange snap-in manually.
Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
PS C:\Users\Administrator> Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010
PS C:\Users\Administrator> & 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\RemoteExchange.ps1'
Welcome to the Exchange Management Shell!
Full list of cmdlets: Get-Command
Only Exchange cmdlets: Get-ExCommand
Cmdlets that match a specific string: Help *<string>*
Get general help: Help
Get help for a cmdlet: Help <cmdlet name> or <cmdlet name> -?
Exchange team blog: Get-ExBlog
Show full output for a command: <command> | Format-List
Show quick reference guide: QuickRef
Tip of the day #22:
Get all Win32 WMI information, such as Perfmon counters and local computer configurations. For example, type:
Get-WMIObject Win32\_PerfRawData\_PerfOS\_Memory
PS C:\Users\Administrator> Get-ExchangeServer | ft -AutoSize
Name Site ServerRole Edition AdminDisplayVersion
---- ---- ---------- ------- -------------------
EXCHANGE1 lab.local/Configuration/Sites/Cologne Mailbox, ClientAccess Enterprise Version 15.0 (Build 1130.7)
PS C:\Users\Administrator>
Looks better, isn’t it?
I compared my lab setup to a running Exchange 2013 single server deployment and I stumbled over the PowerShell version. In addition, I found the Windows Management Framework 5 Production Preview (KB3066437) on my freshly deployed Windows Server 2012 R2 VM.
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>$PSVersionTable.PSVersion
Major Minor Build Revision
----- ----- ----- --------
5 0 10514 6
After checking the Exchange Server Supportability Matrix, it was clear what had happened: WMF 5 is not supported (Source). Not supported with Exchange 2013, and also not supported with Exchange 2016.
Patrick Terlisten/ vcloudnine.de/ Creative Commons CC0
After I had removed KB3066437 from my Exchange server, the EMS loaded successfully.
Welcome to the Exchange Management Shell!
Full list of cmdlets: Get-Command
Only Exchange cmdlets: Get-ExCommand
Cmdlets that match a specific string: Help \*<string>\*
Get general help: Help
Get help for a cmdlet: Help <cmdlet name> or <cmdlet name> -?
Exchange team blog: Get-ExBlog
Show full output for a command: <command> | Format-List
Show quick reference guide: QuickRef
Tip of the day #25:
One benefit of the Exchange Management Shell is that cmdlets can output objects to the console. You can then manipulate this output and organize it in interesting wa
ys. For example, to get a quick view in tabular format, use Format-Table:
Get-Mailbox | Format-Table Name,Database,RulesQuota
VERBOSE: Connecting to exchange1.lab.local.
VERBOSE: Connected to exchange1.lab.local.
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>
You should ALWAYS check if installed applications are supported with newer version of PowerShell/ WMF! Currentyl, no Exchange version is supported with PowerShell 5/ WMF 5.