This isn’t entirely true:
The workflow that NREL now recommends for getting the DOE commercial reference buildings for any version of EnergyPlus/OpenStudio is to use the Generate-Prototype-Buildings measure:
You basically run that measure on a blank model in the OpenStudio Application and it generates the prototype building from scratch. Using this workflow guarantees that all of the relevant info about the prototype building is not being lost through updating the version of E+ (since E+ is pretty fond of breaking changes and you will likely loose a lot of info by using the IDFVersionUpdater on very old IDFs).
That’s also what I would recommend since the resulting OSM that you get will be import-able to Ladybug Tools with relatively little loss of info for the constructions and loads, though you’ll loose all of the HVAC info. That measure will also give you access to some of the newer prototype buildings that the DoE has created recently, like the College Building and the Courthouse Buildings.
Hope that helps.