Active Directory, Second Edition

Chapter 21. Users and Groups

In this chapter, we will show you how to automate the creation and manipulation of user and group accounts. Although tools to create user and group accounts already exist (e.g., the Resource Kit’s Addusers utility), ADSI’s versatility lets you quickly write a script that creates 1,000 fully featured user or group accounts based on whatever business logic you require. You can also create command-line utilities or web-based interfaces using the techniques shown in this chapter to perform such functions as unlocking locked-out user accounts or adding users to groups.

Creating a Simple User Account

You can quickly create a user account with minimal attributes with ADSI. The following code shows how to create a user in an NT domain, a local computer, and an Active Directory domain.

Option Explicit
Dim objDomain, objUser
'Creating a user in a Windows NT domain

Set objDomain = GetObject("WinNT://MYDOMAIN")
Set objUser = objDomain.Create("user","vlaunders")
objUser.SetInfo

'Creating a local user on a computer or member server
'Valid for Windows NT/2000/2003
Set objComputer = GetObject("WinNT://MYCOMPUTER,Computer")
Set objUser = objComputer.Create("user","vlaunders")
objUser.SetInfo

'Creating a user in Active Directory
Set objDomain = GetObject("LDAP://cn=Users,dc=mycorp,dc=com")
Set objUser = objDomain.Create("user","cn=vlaunders")
objUser.Put "sAMAccountName", "vlaunders"
objUser.Put "userPrincipalName", "[e-mail]"
objUser.SetInfo

The code is composed ...