Inside Webster’s Lab: Creating Active Directory Organizational Units, Users, Groups and Computers Using PowerShell

OK, I heard from enough of you that wanted me to do this in PowerShell instead of my batch file. Here is the original article using built-in Windows utilities.  This article will show the original batch file converted to PowerShell.

I created four variables.  One for the domain name, one for the top-level domain identifier, one to determine if you want the OUs protected from accidental deletion, and the last to hold the initial password as a secure string.

The structure of the script is the same as the original batch file:

• Creates the OUs
• Creates the security groups
• Creates the user accounts
• Adds the user accounts into the security groups
• Creates the computer accounts

I named the script CreateLab.ps1.

Figure 1 shows my Active Directory structure before running the script.

Figure 2 shows the results of running the PowerShell script.

Figures 3 through 13 show the AD structure after running the script (which matches running the batch file).

There you go, a PowerShell version of the batch file I use to create my lab’s AD structure.

You can get a PS1 version here and a TXT version here.

Thanks

Webster