Managing AD Objects with PowerShell

PowerShell offers us the ability to manage very detailed and technical aspects of our clients in a standard way. Well, until you get to Active Directory. As part of PowerShell V1, Microsoft omited this seemingly obvious need. Would it be part of PowerShell V2? Nope. Instead I think that Microsoft followed the first rule of Computer Science "Never reinvent the wheel." What I mean by that is that third party vendors already did that for Microsoft so there was no need for Microsoft to invest the resources. The first link below talks about a free Powershell Snapin from Quest that handles AD management in PowerShell. The second like is the link to the down load.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/winpsh/tools/cmdlets.mspx

`http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx

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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.

Error icon when creating a GPO Preference drive map

You may not have an error at all. Take a look at the drive mapping below. The red triangle is what threw us off. It is not an error. It is simply a color representation of the Replace option of the Action field in the properties of the drive mappings. Create action This give you a green triangle. The Create action creates a new mapped drive for users. Replace Action The Replace action gives you a red triangle. This action will delete and recreate mapped drives for users. The net result of the Replace action is to overwrite all existing settings associated with the mapped drive. If the drive mapping does not exist, then the Replace action creates a new drive mapping. Update Action The Update action will have a yellow triangle. Update will modify settings of an existing mapped drive for users. This action differs from Replace in that it only updates settings defined within the preference item. All other settings remain as configured on the mapped drive. If the

Jason Yoder, MCT

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