Getting Help with ADSI

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This chapter provides you with examples of the most common features that you will want to program using ADSI with the Exchange Server directory, but you can program a lot more functionality. If you want to learn more about ADSI and the Exchange Server directory, my recommendation is to review the ADSI information in the MSDN Library under the section Platform SDK\Networking and Distributed Services\Active Directory\Active Directory Services Interfaces (ADSI). Also, to make it easier to visualize the relationships among the objects in the Exchange Server hierarchy, I would recommend using the program named Active Directory Browser (adsvw.exe), which is available on the companion CD. This program draws out the hierarchy of any directory service using ADSI and allows you to query and browse the objects and properties contained in a specific directory as shown in Figure 15-16. This program is an invaluable tool to help you discover the available objects and attributes contained in the Exchange Server directory.

Figure 15-16. The Active Directory Browser program. This program displays graphically the relationships and attributes of the objects contained in any directory that you can connect to using ADSI.

LDP

As part of the Windows 2000 Resource Kit, LDP provides a graphical, low-level interface for LDAP operations such as Bind, Search, Modify, and Delete. You can use LDP with any LDAP-compliant directory, such as Active Directory or the Exchange Server 5.5 directory. Figure 15-17 and Figure 15-18 show the LDP tool working with an Exchange Server 5.5 directory.

Figure 15-17. LDP at work, connecting to an Exchange Server 5.5 directory. This tool is more low-level than the Active Directory Browser.

Figure 15-18. Using LDP to search for distribution lists in Exchange Server 5.5.

ADSI Edit

ADSI Edit is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that allows you low-level access to Active Directory by using ADSI interfaces. You can use this tool, shown in Figure 15-19, to browse and modify information in Active Directory.

Figure 15-19. ADSI Edit working with Windows 2000 Server.

What About ADSI 2.5?

All the applications discussed in this chapter work with ADSI 2.5. While ADSI 2.5 greatly improves the capabilities of using ADSI with Windows 2000 Server, no great enhancements exist for using ADSI with Exchange 5.5 servers. I've included the redistributable version of the ADSI 2.5 object library as well as the programmer's guide on the companion CD so that you can get more information about ADSI 2.5. For those of you running Windows 2000, don't install the redistributable version of ADSI 2.5 since Windows 2000 comes with ADSI 2.5 installed.