CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershellactive-directory
bleepbloop
bleepbloop

Reputation: 41

Trying to disable inactive AD Computers using Powershell using dsquery

I know this has already been done a thousand times using Get-AdComputer but I'm trying to do it using dsquery and pipe. I want to limit my query to a single parent OU. Here's what I've got:

dsquery computer "OU=Workstations,OU=Domain Computers,DC=Contoso,DC=local" -o dn -inactive 4

As expected this gives me a list of computer distinguished names. Move-Object can only take a distinguished name or a GUID. I am piping it out like this:

dsquery computer "OU=Workstations,OU=Domain Computers,DC=Contoso,DC=local" -o dn -inactive 4 | Move-ADObject -TargetPath "OU=4WEEKS,OU=Decommissioned,OU=Domain Computers,DC=Contoso,DC=local"

I am getting the following error for each distinguished name:

Move-ADObject : Cannot find an object with identity: '"CN=COMPUTER1,OU=TEST,OU=Workstations,OU=Domain Computers,DC=Contoso,DC=local"' under: 'DC=contoso,DC=local'.

So then I've tried moving them by GUID:

$4weeks = dsquery computer "OU=Workstations,OU=Domain Computers,DC=contoso,DC=local" -o rdn -inactive 4

This command does display a list of GUIDs:

$4weeks.replace("`"","") | Get-ADComputer -properties * | select Objectguid |

Then I'm piping it like this:

$4weeks.replace("`"","") | Get-ADComputer -properties * | select Objectguid | Move-ADObject -TargetPath "OU=4WEEKS,OU=Decommissioned,OU=Domain Computers,DC=contoso,DC=local"

And I'm not passing through the Identity parameter properly.

Move-ADObject : Cannot validate argument on parameter 'Identity'. The Identity property on the argument is null or empty.

Any suggestions? I'm a bit new at piping.

Thanks!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 716

Answers (1)

Doug Maurer
Doug Maurer

Reputation: 8868

If you're using dsquery to find the computers, why not use dsmod/dsmove to complete the task?

for /f %i in ('dsquery computer "OU=Workstations,OU=Domain Computers,DC=contoso,DC=local" -inactive 4') do (
    dsmod computer %i -disabled yes
    dsmove %i -newparent "OU=4WEEKS,OU=Decommissioned,OU=Domain Computers,DC=Contoso,DC=local"
)

Note To use this in a batch file you need to double up %

To answer your specific question, you'd need to construct an object before piping as powershell expects objects to come down the pipeline. It's probably easier to just use the text through a Foreach-Object loop

dsquery computer "OU=Workstations,OU=Domain Computers,DC=Contoso,DC=local" -o dn -inactive 4 | Foreach-Object {
    Move-ADObject -Identity ($_ -replace '"') -TargetPath "OU=4WEEKS,OU=Decommissioned,OU=Domain Computers,DC=Contoso,DC=local" -PassThru | 
        Set-ADComputer -Enabled $false
}

Note The double quotes that dsquery adds to the distinguished name need to be removed. That is why -Identity ($_ -replace '"') is present

Upvotes: 1

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