3 responses to “PowerShell Active Directory Cmdlets in Windows Server 2008 R2”

• 

  Paul Bendall April 18th, 2009 at 10:30

  Hi Jonathan,

  I must have a look at Windows 2008 R2 once I get a VM up.

  In the mean time do the new Cmdlets make it easier to manipulate a search than Quest?

  For example:

  $oUser = get-qaduser -name ‘Smith, John’

  Now I may have zero, one or many John Smiths and using Quest it is not that easy to write a If…else statement based on Count.

  Paul

• 

  Jonathan Medd April 20th, 2009 at 22:36

  Hey Paul,

  The Get-ADUser cmdlet has an identity parameter however it requires a domain unique value to use, e.g. the samAccountname so something like:

  Get-ADUser JSmith

  would return one of the John Smith’s in your environment who had JSmith for the samAccountname, but wouldn’t return any other John Smith’s.

  Get-ADUser ‘John Smith’

  will fail to return any results (unless it matches a samAccountname value)

  From the help these are the possible values for the Identity parameter:

  -Identity []
  Specifies an Active Directory user object by providing one of the following property values:
  Distinguished Name
  Example: CN=SaraDavis,OU=Europe,CN=Users,DC=corp,DC=contoso,DC=com
  GUID (objectGUID)
  Example: 599c3d2e-f72d-4d20-8a88-030d99495f20
  Security Identifier (objectSid)
  Example: S-1-5-21-3165297888-301567370-576410423-1103
  SAM User Name (sAMUserName)
  Example: saradavis
  User Principal Name (userPrincipalName)
  Example: SaraDavis@corp.contoso.com
  Canonical Name (canonicalName)
  Example: corp.contoso.com/Users/Europe/SaraDavis

  However, you can carry out searches like this:

  PS C:\Users\Jonathan> Get-ADUser -Filter {Name -like “*John*”}

  The results will obviously be dependent on your naming convention.

  Surname : Smith
  Name : John Smith
  UserPrincipalName : user1@springfield.local
  GivenName : John
  SamAccountName : user1
  ObjectClass : user
  SID : S-1-5-21-2833069418-2003798848-2456702638-1104
  ObjectGUID : b09a8b44-3239-4d86-ada0-3d85c3865190
  DistinguishedName : CN=John Smith,OU=Users,OU=Resources,DC=springfield,DC=local

  Surname : Smith
  Name : John D. Smith
  UserPrincipalName : user2@springfield.local
  GivenName : John
  SamAccountName : user2
  ObjectClass : user
  SID : S-1-5-21-2833069418-2003798848-2456702638-1106
  ObjectGUID : e2b810d7-b883-4a76-b7e9-433ad225addd
  DistinguishedName : CN=John D. Smith,OU=Users,OU=Resources,DC=springfield,DC=local

  Surname : Smith
  Name : John X. Smith
  UserPrincipalName : user3@springfield.local
  GivenName : John
  SamAccountName : user3
  ObjectClass : user
  SID : S-1-5-21-2833069418-2003798848-2456702638-1107
  ObjectGUID : af8ac639-3645-4f86-ab20-966d8a4f1ab6
  DistinguishedName : CN=John X. Smith,OU=Users,OU=Resources,DC=springfield,DC=local

  Hope that helps

• 

  Vernice Hands April 1st, 2011 at 23:49

  I am not sure where you are getting your info, but good topic. I needs to spend some time learning much more or understanding more. Thanks for fantastic info I was looking for this info for my mission.