Windows Server 2003 Directory Service Tools

As an administrator of an Active Directory (AD) domain, at some point you're going to want to perform some typical AD management tasks for multiple objects in one operation. You can automate many tasks in Windows 2000 if you're skilled in Windows Script Host (WSH) and Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) scripting technologies, but bulk operations of common administrative tasks can be difficult without this knowledge. The Ldifde and Csvde tools provide limited support, but creating the required input files (i.e., LDAP Data Interchange Format—LDIF—and comma-separated value—CSV—files) can be tedious. Therefore, most people don't find these tools complete or easy to work with. Consequently, executing AD management operations for multiple objects under Win2K can be frustrating. Fortunately, Microsoft addressed this problem by providing a set of six directory service command-line tools in Windows Server 2003. Let's look at how to use these tools in some real-world situations that you might encounter. . . .