PowerShell 3 breaks Exchange 2007/2010

PowerShell 3.0 is now available for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 as an optional update in Windows Management Framework 3.0. Do not install this on your Exchange 2007/2010 servers or any workstations with the management tools for Exchange 2007/2010.


Symptoms include the inability to install rollup updates and some cmdlets not functioning properly.

The updates to avoid are:

• KB2506146
• KB2506143

For more information, see The Exchange Team Blog:

•  http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2012/12/14/windows-management-framework-3-0-on-exchange-2007-and-exchange-2010.aspx

UPDATE: Feb 11, 2013
Exchange 2010 SP3 has been released and enables support for running on Windows Server 2012. I have not yet tested it, but since Windows Server 2012 has PowerShell v3 installed, this SP should also allow PowerShell v3 to be installed on other versions of Windows Server.

• http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2013/02/12/released-exchange-server-2010-sp3.aspx

UPDATE: Nov 27, 2013
I have Exchange 2010 SP3 running on Windows Server 2012 with all updates. I was playing yesterday and noticed that EMS loads by using the -version 2.0 switch. If you try to kick it over to use version 3.0, it's not happy. Don't do that!