[Error Fixed]: Exchange Server Version or Later must be used to Perform a Recovery of this Server

Summary: When trying to install an Exchange Server with Recover Server mode, you may encounter the error message, “Exchange Server version or later must be used to perform a recovery of this server.” In this post, we will see how to resolve this error. We will also mention an Exchange repair tool that can help recover data from corrupt Exchange database files.

An Exchange Server may fail due to malware/ransomware attack, sudden loss of power, issues during Cumulative Update (CU) installation, hardware failure, and various other reasons. In such a case, you can rebuild the server and restore the data from backup. When rebuilding the server, you must retain the same computer name, IP address, drive configuration, operating system, and version of the Exchange Server media. Once the operating system is installed, you need to install the Exchange Server with the RecoverServer option (see the below example).

Setup.exe /Mode:RecoverServer

This will install the Exchange Server and also recover the configuration of the previous Exchange Server without the custom send/receive connectors and without the certificates. However, during the installation of the server, it might happen that a prerequisite of the installation fails and you get an error message similar to the below.

Exchange Server version <version value> or later must be used to perform a recovery of this server.

From the above error message, it looks the version that was installed on the server prior to the server crash/failure doesn’t match the one you’re installing. Although you’re installing the same version of Exchange Server, you need to also check the Cumulative Update (CU) level. For example, the January 2023 Security Update (SU) has updated the SerialNumber property in the Active Directory Schema for the Exchange Server. This property should also contain the Exchange Server Cumulative Update (CU) version. But the January 2023 Security Update (SU) has updated the property to the Security Update (SU) only. Due to this, the prerequisite check has failed, resulting in the error.

How to Resolve the Version Error when Installing Exchange Server in RecoverServer Mode?

To resolve the error, you need to restore the SerialNumber value to the right Exchange Server Cumulative Update (CU) version. For this, you can use PowerShell or ADSIEdit.

1. Using the PowerShell

You can use the PowerShell commands to restore the SerialNumber value. For this, you need to first choose the SerialNumber property that matches your installation of the lost server. You can refer to the below table for the Exchange Server 2019 and 2016 Cumulative Update (CU) serial numbers.

Cumulative Update	Serial Number
Exchange Server 2019 CU12	Version 15.2 (Build 31118.007)
Exchange Server 2019 CU11	Version 15.2 (Build 30986.005)
Exchange Server 2016 CU23	Version 15.1 (Build 32507.006)
Exchange Server 2016 CU12	Version 15.1 (Build 32375.007)

Next, you need to update the Active Directory to reflect the right serial number. For this, you need the serial number, along with the distinguished name of the Exchange Server. You can retrieve this from the ADSIEdit. Here’s how:

• Open the ADSIEdit with Configuration as the Naming Context.

• Browse to the Servers container from the Microsoft Exchange container.

• Right-click on the Server’s container and click on Properties. Here, you will find the distinguished name in the attribute list.

• Click on View and copy the value.

Once you have the serial number and the distinguished value, open PowerShell as Administrator and run the below command to update the Active Directory object.

$distname= <distinguished name of the Exchange Server installation on the lost server>
Set-ADObject -Identity "$distname" -Replace @{serialnumber="<SerialNumber>"}

If the command fails saying that the term is not recognized as the name of cmdlet, you need to install the RSAT tools for the Active Directory Services. For this, run the below command:

Install-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS

Once this is complete, again try to install the server with the RecoverServer mode. This should fix the problem and you should be able to install the server.

2. Using the ADSIEdit

Alternatively, you can use the ADSIEdit to restore the SerialNumber value. Here are the steps:

Caution: As you are doing changes to the schema, you need to be careful as the changes cannot be undone.

• Open ADSIEdit.msc.
• Click on Connect To, select Configuration from the Select a well known Naming Context option.

• Browse to the Servers container from the Microsoft Exchange container. Right-click on the server and click on properties.

• Click on the Edit button and remove the serial number and replace it with the one from the table given above.

Once this is complete, retry the server installation with the RecoverServer mode.

To Conclude

With the above solutions, you can resolve the version error when installing Exchange Server in RecoverServer mode. However, the challenging task is to recover all the data from the EDB files of the previous server with no data loss and with minimal recovery time. In case there is damage or corruption in the databases, you can use specialized tools to immediately recover the data and meet the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of the company. One such tool that can help in achieving this is Stellar Repair for Exchange.

With this Exchange server recovery software, you can open multiple standalone, corrupted/healthy databases from any version of Exchange Server (from 5.5 to 2019), with no size limit and without a working Exchange Server. You can browse through the datastore and granularly export the data to PST and other file formats. You can also export user mailboxes, user archives, shared mailboxes, disabled mailboxes, public folders, and deleted/purged items directly to a live Exchange Server. The tool can also be used to migrate EDB data to Microsoft 365.

Related Post