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Hey, Scripting Guy! I am interested in using Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) cmdlets to create users and organizational units. Is this a hard thing to do? I only ask this because I am an extremely busy network administrator who has barely had time to begin looking at Windows PowerShell. I do...

Hey Scripting Guy! I need to be able to move a group from one organizational unit to another. The problem is that our network has thousands of groups and organizational units. What I need is a way to easily find the group and the organizational unit. After the group and the organizational unit have been...

( Note Today’s response is taken from Ed Wilson’s book, Windows PowerShell Step by Step , which is available on Microsoft Press.) Hey, Scripting Guy! At my company, we are often called upon to create objects in Active Directory. I do not mind using the Active Directory Users and Computers tool...

How Can I Get Help with Scripts I’m Writing? Hey, Scripting Guy! I am a novice scripter but am being diligent about learning more specifically around VBScript. I am following the Microsoft Press book, Windows Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide , and I find it very helpful. Is there someplace people...

Hey, Scripting Guy! As part of a logon script, I need to determine the distinguished name of the OU for the user logging on. How can I do that? -- LK Hey, LK. Today is May 12 th , which might not mean much to you. But, then again, maybe it does; after all, May 12 th is the birthday of Cosimo II...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I get a list of all the computers in my domain, grouping those computers by the OU in which the computer account resides? -- TA Hey, TA. Well, today is Monday, and the Scripting Guy who writes this column is actually glad it’s Monday. Not that he’s all that excited about...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I get a list of all the users in an OU who are not a member of a specified group? -- TJ Hey, TJ. You know, the Scripting Guys are having so much fun with the 2008 Winter Scripting Games that we just can’t bear to see the excitement come to an end; therefore, we’ve...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I need to get a list of all the users in an OU and its subOUs, then change their email addresses so those addresses only user lowercase letters. How can I do that? -- TB Hey, TB. You know, we had to think twice before going ahead and answering this question. That’s not because...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a problem and I haven’t quite figured out how to solve it. I have an Active Directory group, and I’d like to remove some users from that group; in particular, I’d like to remove all the users whose user accounts reside in a specified OU. How do I do that?...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I map a printer based on the local computer’s OU? -- TG Hey, TG. Before we begin, we’d like to offer a sincere and heartfelt apology to the Scripting Editor. In a recent column , we made it sound as if, in her words, the Scripting Editor was a “ditzy teenager.” That, of...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Given a distinguished name, how can I determine the “topmost” OU? -- HF Hey, HF. You know, as he was driving in to work this morning, the Scripting Guy who writes this column heard an advertisement for a series of adult education courses being offered by a local community college...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I need to create a logon script that maps a network drive based on the logged-on user’s user name and OU. How can I do that? -- KB Hey, KB. You know, KB, this is probably the toughest day of the year for the Scripting Guy who writes this column. For the past four days – Thursday...

Hey, Scripting Guy! In a logon script, which attribute do I use to determine the OU that the local computer belongs to? -- JP Hey, JP. Most people are familiar with Cupid, the Roman god of love. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t know that Cupid carries with him a quiver of...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I list all the sub-OUs in an OU? That includes any OUs that might be in those sub-OUs. -- JE Hey, JE. If you’re the least bit familiar with this column then you know that we Scripting Guys love to answer questions that involve searching Active Directory. That’s because...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I move all the users from one OU to another OU? -- PD Hey, PD. You know, when you work at Microsoft you quickly learn to hate to word “move.” After all, if it wasn’t for the fact that we own the buildings you would think we were trying to skip out on paying the rent; that...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I determine if an OU has the Group Policy property Block Policy Inheritance box checked? -- PP Hey, PP. You know, sometimes you wait all your life for a situation to arise, and then it never arises. For example, one of the Scripting Guys happens to know all nine verses...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I get a list of all the users in an OU and its sub-OUs? -- MN Hey, MN. Thanks to either faulty wiring or a neighbor’s fireworks (the investigation was inconclusive), one of the Scripting Guys had the delightful experience of watching his garage burn down this summer. Because...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I list all the groups in an OU? -- MK Hey, MK. You know, sometimes people ask us a question and then immediately apologize for having asked it, believing that the question is “way too easy for you guys.” In turn, that seems to imply that the Scripting Guys aren’t really...

Hey, Scripting Guy! We have a number of OUs in our domain that have the word Servers in the OU name. How can I retrieve a list of those OUs? -- AM Hey, AM. One of the Scripting Guys has a 15-year-old son who, whenever he hears his father tell a story about the good old days, rolls his eyes and says...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I tell if an OU has any user accounts in it? -- RL Hey, RL. As a matter of fact, there is a way to determine whether or not an OU contains any user accounts: all you have to do is search just that OU for nothing but user accounts. When you perform a search, any “hits” ...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How do I determine the OU a user account belongs to? -- CO Hey, CO. Ah, yes: the OU a user belongs to. No doubt a lot of you are thinking, “Well, there’s probably an OU property of some kind in Active Directory that gives you that information. All you have to do is locate the user...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I enumerate all the objects in an Active Directory OU? -- RB Hey, RB. By the way, thanks: it’s always nice to get an easy question every once in awhile! Enumerating all the objects in an OU is almost embarrassingly-simple: by default, any time you bind to an OU using ADSI...