Moving AD User to another OU using different credentials

In order to move Active Directory User to another OU you will need a service account with priviledges to move AD objects. Below is VBScript that worked for me:

Const ADS_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION = 1
sADDomain = "mydomain"
sADUser = "serviceuser"
sADPassword = "mypassword"

sDestOU = "LDAP://OU=My Group,DC=mydomain,DC=net"
Set objRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP:")
Set objSysInfo = CreateObject("ADSystemInfo")
Set objDestOU = objRootDSE.OpenDSObject(sDestOU, sADDomain & "\" & sADUser, sADPassword, ADS_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION)

Set objUser = objRootDSE.OpenDSObject("LDAP://" & objSysInfo.UserName, sADDomain & "\" & sADUser, sADPassword, ADS_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION)

objDestOU.MoveHere "LDAP://" & objUser.distinguishedName, vbNullString
If Err.Number = 0 Then
 MsgBox "User moved successfully."
Else
 MsgBox "Error " & Err.Number & ": " & Err.Description
 Err.Clear
End If

Running Powershell script with spaces in the name from VBScript

Running Powershell script from VBScript is rather simple:

Set objShell=CreateObject("Wscript.Shell)
sCmd="C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe C:\test.ps1"
objShell.Run sCmd, 1, true

But what to do when the Powershell script file has spaces in the name, like C:\My Path\test.ps1?

Theanswer is to use ampersand and single quotes:

Set objShell=CreateObject("Wscript.Shell)
sCmd="C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe " & Chr(34) & "& 'C:\script with spaces.ps1'"  & Chr(34) 
objShell.Run sCmd, 1, true

or

Set objShell=CreateObject("Wscript.Shell)
sPSPath="C:\script with spaces.ps1"
sCmd="C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe " & Chr(34) & "& '" & sPSPath & "'"  & Chr(34) 
objShell.Run sCmd, 1, true

Active Directory container vs. organizational unit

Active directory container is a built-in container that comes with AD and they cannot be altered to suit your organizational needs, without altering the AD schema. (Examples: Computers and Users containers).

An OU or Organizational Unit is a special purpose container created by the user and to which administrators can apply group policy. Group policy cannot be applied to a container. An organizational unit is a subdivision within an Active Directory into which you can place users, groups, computers, and other organizational units. You can create organizational units to suit your organization's functional or business structure. Each domain can implement its own organizational unit hierarchy.

Add an array value to the Registry using Powershell

The code below initializes array $a and creates a key named "MyArray" of type REG_MULTI_SZ in registry path HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\Test and sets its value to an array

$a = ("val1", "val2", "val3")

$RegPath= "Registry::HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\Test"

Set-itemProperty $RegPath -name "myArray" -value $a -type MultiString

Generating comma separated lists with SELECT statement

I needed to retrieve a two column data set from a database where the first column would contain the last name of the author and second column - a comma separated list of all the book titles for that particular author.

It was rather simple to generate a list of author ids and list of title ids usign SUBSTRING function and FOR XML

SELECT a.au_id, 
SUBSTRING(  (  SELECT ( ',' + title_id)  
FROM titleauthor ta   
WHERE a.au_id = ta.au_id  
ORDER BY a.au_id, ta.au_id  FOR XML PATH('') ), 3, 1000)
FROM authors a
GROUP BY a.au_id

To generate a list of actual full names and titles, all i had to do is add a join to titles table:

SELECT a.au_lname + ', ' + a.au_fname, SUBSTRING(  (  SELECT ( ',' + '''' + t.title + '''')  
FROM titles t
INNER JOIN titleauthor ta ON t.title_id=ta.title_id  
WHERE a.au_id = ta.au_id  
ORDER BY  a.au_lname + ', ' + a.au_fname  FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000)
FROM authors a
GROUP BY a.au_id,a.au_lname + ', ' + a.au_fname

Strange occurrence when returning Datatable from a function

I was trying to retrieve some data from a SQL Server database using Powershel using the following function:

function GetLocationData($Name)
{
$SqlConnection = New-Object system.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection 
$SqlConnection.ConnectionString = "Server=ServerName;Database=MyDB;User Id=dbuser;Password=pwd;"

$SqlCommandText = "SELECT Field1, Field2 FROM TableName WHERE [Name]='" + $Name + "'"
$SqlConnection.Open()

$SqlCmd = New-Object Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand($SqlCommandText, $SqlConnection)
$Reader = $SqlCmd.ExecuteReader()

$Datatable = New-Object System.Data.DataTable 
$DataTable.Load($Reader)  

# Close the database connection 
$sqlConnection.Close() 

return $Datatable
}

When I would call it from my script

$dt = New-Object System.Data.DataTable
$dt=GetLocationData $item.name 
Write-Host "row count is " +  $dt.Rows.Count

It would not return anything and if I tried accessing a field

Write-Host $dt.Rows[0].Field1

I would get an error "Cannot index into null array"


The issue is that function would be returning a child collection of the table object instead of the table itself. What helped me is using the comma operator to wrap the rows collection in an array so that when the array is unrolled leaving me with the original rows collection.

So all I had to do to fix this issue is put a comma in the return statement right before datatable object:

function GetLocationData($Name)
{
$SqlConnection = New-Object system.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection 
$SqlConnection.ConnectionString = "Server=ServerName;Database=MyDB;User Id=dbuser;Password=pwd;"


$SqlCommandText = "SELECT Field1, Field2 FROM TableName WHERE [Name]='" + $Name + "'"
$SqlConnection.Open()

$SqlCmd = New-Object Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand($SqlCommandText, $SqlConnection)
$Reader = $SqlCmd.ExecuteReader()

$Datatable = New-Object System.Data.DataTable 
$DataTable.Load($Reader)  

# Close the database connection 
$sqlConnection.Close() 

return ,$Datatable
}

Windows Live Essentials 2011 uninstall from Windows 7

I have been struggling with creating an uninstall package for Windows Live Essentials 2011 on Windows 7 platform.

Finally I found a list of uninstallers that need to be run in order to clear out all of Windows Live Essentials:

Live Essentials {FE044230-9CA5-43F7-9B58-5AC5A28A1F33}
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition {F0B430D1-B6AA-473D-9B06-AA3DD01FD0B8}
D3DX10    Microsoft   {E09C4DB7-630C-4F06-A631-8EA7239923AF}
Live Remote Service   {E02A6548-6FDE-40E2-8ED9-119D7D7E641F}
Live Remote Client    {DF6D988A-EEA0-4277-AAB8-158E086E439B}
Live Writer Resources {DDC8BDEE-DCAC-404D-8257-3E8D4B782467}
Live MIME IFilter     {DA54F80E-261C-41A2-A855-549A144F2F59}
Live Communications Platform {D45240D3-B6B3-4FF9-B243-54ECE3E10066}
Live Photo Common     {D436F577-1695-4D2F-8B44-AC76C99E0002}
MSVCRT_amd64    Microsoft  {D0B44725-3666-492D-BEF6-587A14BD9BD9}
Live UX Platform      {CE95A79E-E4FC-4FFF-8A75-29F04B942FF2}
Live Mail    {C66824E4-CBB3-4851-BB3F-E8CFD6350923}
Live Writer  {AAAFC670-569B-4A2F-82B4-42945E0DE3EF}
Live Mesh    {A0C91188-C88F-4E86-93E6-CD7C9A266649}
Live Movie Maker  {92EA4134-10D1-418A-91E1-5A0453131A38}
MSVCRT    Microsoft  {8DD46C6A-0056-4FEC-B70A-28BB16A1F11F}
Mesh Runtime  {8C6D6116-B724-4810-8F2D-D047E6B7D68E}
Microsoft Silverlight  {89F4137D-6C26-4A84-BDB8-2E5A4BB71E00}
Live Remote Client Resources  {847B0532-55E3-4AAF-8D7B-E3A1A7CD17E5}
Live Messenger {80956555-A512-4190-9CAD-B000C36D6B6B}
Live Messenger Companion Core  {78A96B4C-A643-4D0F-98C2-A8E16A6669F9}
Live UX Platform Language Pack {6A05FEDF-662E-46BF-8A25-010E3F1C9C69}
Live SOXE  {682B3E4F-696A-42DE-A41C-4C07EA1678B4}
Bing Bar Platform   {65C0025A-2CDE-43C5-82D0-C7A56EF0DB39}
Live Remote Service Resources2   {656DEEDE-F6AC-47CA-A568-A1B4E34B5760}
Live Language Selector  {5EB6F3CB-46F4-451F-A028-7F6D8D35D7D0}
Messenger Companion   {50816F92-1652-4A7C-B9BC-48F682742C4B}
Live PIMT Platform   {4CBABDFD-49F8-47FD-BE7D-ECDE7270525A}
Live Family Safety   {46A5FBE9-ADB3-4493-A1CC-B4CFFD24D26A}
Live Photo Gallery   {34F4D9A4-42C2-4348-BEF4-E553C84549E7}
Live Mesh ActiveX Control for Remote Connections {2902F983-B4C1-44BA-B85D-5C6D52E2C441}
Live SOXE Definitions  {200FEC62-3C34-4D60-9CE8-EC372E01C08F}
Junk Mail filter update {1F6AB0E7-8CDD-4B93-8A23-AA9EB2FEFCE4}
Live ID Sign-in Assistant  {1B8ABA62-74F0-47ED-B18C-A43128E591B8}
Live Installer   {0B0F231F-CE6A-483D-AA23-77B364F75917}
Bing Bar   {08234a0d-cf39-4dca-99f0-0c5cb496da81}

I also needed to package separately Windows Live Photo gallery and Movie Maker and create an uninstall just for those two:

Live Essentials {FE044230-9CA5-43F7-9B58-5AC5A28A1F33}
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition {F0B430D1-B6AA-473D-9B06-AA3DD01FD0B8}
D3DX10    Microsoft  {E09C4DB7-630C-4F06-A631-8EA7239923AF}
Live Communications Platform  {D45240D3-B6B3-4FF9-B243-54ECE3E10066}
Live Photo Common {D436F577-1695-4D2F-8B44-AC76C99E0002}
MSVCRT_amd64 Microsoft  {D0B44725-3666-492D-BEF6-587A14BD9BD9}
Live UX Platform  {CE95A79E-E4FC-4FFF-8A75-29F04B942FF2}
Live Movie Maker  {92EA4134-10D1-418A-91E1-5A0453131A38}
MSVCRT    Microsoft {8DD46C6A-0056-4FEC-B70A-28BB16A1F11F}
Live UX Platform Language Pack {6A05FEDF-662E-46BF-8A25-010E3F1C9C69}
Live SOXE {682B3E4F-696A-42DE-A41C-4C07EA1678B4}
Live PIMT Platform {4CBABDFD-49F8-47FD-BE7D-ECDE7270525A}
Live Photo Gallery {34F4D9A4-42C2-4348-BEF4-E553C84549E7}
Live SOXE Definitions {200FEC62-3C34-4D60-9CE8-EC372E01C08F}
Live ID Sign-in Assistant  {1B8ABA62-74F0-47ED-B18C-A43128E591B8}
Live Installer {0B0F231F-CE6A-483D-AA23-77B364F75917}

As it turned out the above was not enough to uninstall Photo Gallery, I needed two more Product GUIDs, one for PhotGallery and one for Photo Common, so in total the were 2 GUIDs for Photo Gallery and 2 GUIDs for Photo Common. Below are the extra GUIDs:

Live Photo Gallery {3336F667-9049-4D46-98B6-4C743EEBC5B1}
Live Photo Common {A9BDCA6B-3653-467B-AC83-94367DA3BFE3}