Skip to main content

Making sure your OUs have Deletion Protection

Deletion Protection is a feature that prevents an OU from being accidently deleted.  This is a feature of Windows Server 2008.  For those servers upgraded from Windows Server 2003, Deletion Protection is not turned on.  Until now the only way to turn on the Deletion Protection is manually.  Well, now you can use PowerShell V2 to take care of this for you.

Windows PowerShell V2 comes installed on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. For previous versions of Windows, you can download PowerShell V2 from here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968930

You will also need to make sure the Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell is installed.  This can be found as a feature in the Remote Server Administrator Tools.

The First step is to launch the PowerShell environment.  If you do not have an icon on the screen, you will find it is  Start \ All Programs \ Accessories \ Windows PowerShell \ Windows PowerShell

Once the Shell loads, you need to add the Active Directory module by typing Import-Module ActiveDirectory and pressing Enter.

First off, look for OUs that do not have Deletion Protection turned on:


Get-ADOrganizationalUnit – Filter * -Properties ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion | Where {$_.ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion –eq $False} | FT DistinguishedName

If any OUs are listed, you may want to enable the Deletion Protection.  To do this:


Get-ADOrganizationalUnit – Filter * -Properties ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion | Where {$_.ProtectedFromAccidentialDeletion –eq $False} | Set-ADOrganizationalUnit –ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion $True

Running the first command will verify that the protection is turned on.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to list all the AD LDS instances on a server

AD LDS allows you to provide directory services to applications that are free of the confines of Active Directory.  To list all the AD LDS instances on a server, follow this procedure: Log into the server in question Open a command prompt. Type dsdbutil and press Enter Type List Instances and press Enter . You will receive a list of the instance name, both the LDAP and SSL port numbers, the location of the database, and its status.

How to run GPResult on a remote client with PowerShell

In the past, to run the GPResult command, you would need to either physically visit this client, have the user do it, or use and RDP connection.  In all cases, this will disrupt the user.  First, you need PowerShell remoting enabled on the target machine.  You can do this via Group Policy . Open PowerShell and type this command. Invoke-Command –ScriptBlock {GPResult /r} –ComputerName <ComputerName> Replace <ComputerName> with the name of the target.  Remember, the target needs to be online and accessible to you.

Where did a User’s Account Get Locked Out?

Updated: May 15, 2015 When this article was originally published, two extra carriage returns were add causing the code to malfunction.  The code below is correct.   My client for this week’s PowerShell class had a really interesting question. They needed to know where an account is being locked out at. OK, interesting. Apparently users hop around clients and forget to log off, leading to eventual lock out of their accounts. The accounts can be unlocked, but are then relocked after Active Directory replication. This problem is solved in two parts. The first one is to modify the event auditing on the network. The second part is resolved with PowerShell. The first part involves creating a group policy that will encompass your Domain Controllers. In this GPO, make these changes. Expand Computer Configuration \ Policies \ Windows Settings \ Security Settings \ Advanced Audit Policy Configuration \ Audit Policies \ Account Management Double click User Account Management C...