Powershell scripts for AD

Anatoly Mironov

December 5, 2011

A tip for all who want to administer AD with powershell: Idera Powershell scripts. Just sign up and get the free scripts for AD, SQL, Exchange and Sharepoint. I personally prefer to user modules, so I change the file extension from ps1 to psm1 and then I can use import functions as modules. Here is a simple example for creating for domain users:

import-module .\New-IADUser1.psm1
function Add-User($name) {
    New-IADUser -Name $name `
         -sAMAccountname $name `
         -ParentContainer 'CN=Users, DC=contoso, DC=com' `
         -Password 'SvenskaAkademien1786' `
         -EnableAccount -PasswordNeverExpires
}
Add-User "user01"
Add-User "user02"
Add-User "user03"
Add-User "user04"

update 2012-03-15: nice script from Ryan

Ryan Dennis has created a very handy script for creating random users. In PowerShell v3.0 there is a cmdlet for creating users: New-ADUser. So the function above can be rewritten like that:

Import-Module ActiveDirectory -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
function Add-User($name) {
  $password = ConvertTo-SecureString 'SvenskaAkademien1786' -AsPlainText -Force
  New-ADUser -Name $name -sAMAccountname $name `
    -Path 'CN=Users, DC=contoso, DC=com' `
    -AccountPassword $password -Enabled $true -PasswordNeverExpires $true
}
Add-User "user01"
Add-User "user02"
Add-User "user03"
Add-User "user04"