Windows PowerShell™ 2 For Dummies®

Chapter 20. Reaching Out to Active Directory

In This Chapter

• Introducing Active Directory

• Talking to Active Directory

• Finding objects and attributes

• Manipulating object attributes

• Locating the raw ADSI object

Chances are that if you're running Windows servers in your network, you've already set up an Active Directory. It serves only as an account repository (allowing users to use a single credential to get authenticated and permissioned throughout your Windows network), but also as a central store for all kinds of user and computer account information. Needless to say, the importance of Active Directory within any Windows network is extremely high, and your ability to talk to and manage it effectively should be number-one on your priority list.

Windows PowerShell makes it very easy to talk to Active Directory (AD) because you can take advantage of the whole slew of .NET classes specifically designed for effective AD communications. In fact, if you like using Windows PowerShell for interacting with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), you'll find that interacting with AD is even easier. Let's face it — you're reading this book because you're a fan of finding easy ways to do things.

In this chapter, you find out just how easy it is to get information from Active Directory using the Active Directory Services Interface provider in addition to a handful of Microsoft .NET classes that help you refine your search criteria. You also use these same providers to modify attributes of objects ...