Check Exchange Schema version with PowerShell

You want to know if your Active Directory (AD) is up to date. For example, you want to check and verify the Exchange 2016 schema version before and after an upgrade to Exchange 2016 CU16. Read the article, if you need to prepare Active Directory and domains for Exchange Server. In this article, you will learn how to check the Exchange schema version with PowerShell.

Why checking Exchange schema version information

It’s good to check and verify the Exchange schema version, for example:

• Before updating Exchange Server to a new version
• Before installing a new Exchange Server
• After preparing Active Directory and domains for Exchange Server

Get Exchange schema version with PowerShell commands

Run PowerShell as administrator. Run the following commands one by one.

PS C:\> # Exchange Schema Version
PS C:\> $sc = (Get-ADRootDSE).SchemaNamingContext
PS C:\> $ob = "CN=ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt," + $sc
PS C:\> Write-Output "RangeUpper: $((Get-ADObject $ob -pr rangeUpper).rangeUpper)"
RangeUpper: 15332
 
PS C:\> # Exchange Object Version (domain)
PS C:\> $dc = (Get-ADRootDSE).DefaultNamingContext
PS C:\> $ob = "CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects," + $dc
PS C:\> Write-Output "ObjectVersion (Default): $((Get-ADObject $ob -pr objectVersion).objectVersion)"
ObjectVersion (Default): 13237
 
PS C:\> # Exchange Object Version (forest)
PS C:\> $cc = (Get-ADRootDSE).ConfigurationNamingContext
PS C:\> $fl = "(objectClass=msExchOrganizationContainer)"
PS C:\> Write-Output "ObjectVersion (Configuration): $((Get-ADObject -LDAPFilter $fl -SearchBase $cc -pr objectVersion).objectVersion)"
ObjectVersion (Configuration): 16217

Get Exchange schema version with Get-ADversions script

Download the script Get-ADversions.ps1 and save it in the C:\scripts\ folder. Run PowerShell as administrator. Make sure that you set the Execution Policy to Unrestricted. Press Y and Enter. If you don’t, the script will not run.

PS C:\> Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Execution Policy Change
The execution policy helps protect you from scripts that you do not trust. Changing the execution policy might expose you to the
security risks described in the about_Execution_Policies help topic at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170. Do you want to
change the execution policy?
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "N"): Y

Adjust the path to the C:\scripts\ folder and run the Get-ADversions.ps1 script.

PS C:\> cd C:\scripts\
PS C:\scripts> .\Get-ADversions.ps1
RangeUpper: 15332
ObjectVersion (Default): 13237
ObjectVersion (Configuration): 16217

After running the PowerShell script, you will see an output of the Active Directory versions.

RangeUpper = 15332
ObjectVersion (Default) = 13237
ObjectVersion (Configuration) = 16217

The next step is to check and verify the schema.

Check and verify Active Directory versions

How to confirm the Exchange Active Directory versions? Visit the page Exchange schema versions to get a list of the object versions.

We can confirm that Exchange 2016 schema version is up to date for Exchange 2016 CU16. In fact, Exchange 2016 CU15, Exchange 2016 CU14, and Exchange 2016 CU13 are eligible as well.

Conclusion

To sum it up, you learned how to check and verify the Exchange schema version with PowerShell. Run the Get-ADversions.ps1 PowerShell script and check if the Active Directory versions are correctly shown.

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