Recipe16.3.Modifying an Attribute for Several Users at Once


Recipe 16.3. 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

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


  1. Open the 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 attribute fields.

  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  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")     objUser.HomeDirectory = "\\<FileServerName>\" & _                             objUser.Get("sAMAccountName")     objUser.SetInfo next

Discussion

It is often necessary to update several users at once due to an organizational, location, or file server change. In each solution, I showed how to modify all users within a parent container, but you may need to use different criteria for locating the users.

With ADUC, you are limited to modifying multiple users that belong to the same container. You can, however, create a Saved Query with the Windows Server 2003 version of ADUC that returns users based on any criteria you specify. You can then highlight those users and modify them as described in the GUI solution.

With the CLI solution, you can modify the dsquery user command to search on whatever criteria you are interested. The same applies in the VBScript solution, but you'll need to use an ADO query instead of the Filter method if you want to do anything more complex.

Microsoft PSS provides a tool called ADModify, which can also be used for performing bulk operations. You can download the tool from ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/PSS/Tools/Exchange%20Support%20Tools/ADModify/.




Windows Server Cookbook
Windows Server Cookbook for Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000
ISBN: 0596006330
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 380
Authors: Robbie Allen

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