Exchange server and EMS startup issues

"So I just installed Exchange on my server and I'm unable to connect locally via Exchange Management Shell (EMS) or Exchange Control Panel (ECP). Here is the error that I get in EMS.Do you have any ideas?" This is a question that I get frequently enough I figured that I would blog about the most common cause for this error:

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

After checking and confirming the obvious things like making sure the right services are running as well as running on a supported version of Windows Server. People often spent a lot of time troubleshooting RPC connectivity to the server but in fact there is a far easier solution.

The Exchange Server Supportability Matrix states:

• Exchange 2013 or later requires the version of Windows PowerShell that's included in Windows (unless otherwise specified by an Exchange Setup-enforced prerequisite rule).
• Exchange 2010 requires Windows PowerShell 2.0 on all supported versions of Windows.
• Exchange does not support the use of Windows Management Framework add-ons on any version of Windows PowerShell or Windows. If there are other installed versions of Windows PowerShell that support side-by-side operation, Exchange will use only the version that it requires.

The above error can simply be a result of a Windows Management Framework (WMF) update installed on the server. As the supportability matrix outlines, Exchange only supports the version of WMF that shipped the operating system. Below is a list of Windows Server OS version and which PowerShell version it shipped with:

Based on this table check to see if there are any WMF updates installed on the server in question and if found, uninstall the update.

Following the removal of the update a reboot will be required and once complete access to the server should be as expected.