Active Directory Cookbook

6.4. Modifying an Attribute for Several Users at Once

Problem

You want to modify an attribute for several users at once.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

Tip

This requires the Windows Server 2003 version of the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in.

1. Open the Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) snap-in.

2. If you need to change domains, right-click on “Active Directory Users and Computers” in the left pane, select Connect to Domain, enter the domain name, and click OK.

3. In the left pane, browse to the parent container of the objects you want to modify.

4. In the right pane, highlight each object you want to modify, right-click and select Properties.

5. Check the box beside the attribute(s) you want to modify and edit the fields for the attributes.

6. Click OK.

Using a command-line interface

The following command sets the home directory of all users under a parent container (<ParentDN>) to be on a particular file server (<FileServer>). The user (i.e., $username$) is automatically replaced with the sAMAccountName for the user.

> for /F "usebackq delims=""" %i in (`dsquery user "<ParentDN>" -limit 0 -scope[RETURN]
onelevel`) do dsmod user -hmdir "\\<FileServerName>\$username$" %i

Using VBScript

' This code sets the home drive of all users under a container
' to be on a file server where the share name is the same as the user's
' sAMAccountName.
set objParent = GetObject("LDAP://<ParentDN>") objParent.Filter = Array("user") for each objUser in objParent Wscript.Echo "Modifying " & objUser.Get("sAMAccountName") ...