PowerShell - search AD for Computer Object in List

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howbs2002-5879 asked Mar 18, '21 howbs2002-5879 commented Mar 19, '21

PowerShell - search AD for Computer Object in List

I am trying to ascertain if server accounts in a text file exist in AD, but I only get the result - "server does not exists in AD" even for servers that do exist.

Please help me figure out what I have missed:

 **foreach ($server in (Get-Content C:\Scripts\servers.txt)) {
   try{
     $test = Get-ADComputer -Identity $server -ErrorAction Stop
     if($test){
       Write-Output "Server object $server exists in AD" | Out-File C:\Scripts\AD_result.txt -Append
     }
   }catch{
     Write-Output "Server object $server does not exist in AD" | Out-File C:\Scripts\AD_result.txt -Append
   }
 }**

windows-server-powershell

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Answer 1 · 2021-03-19T01:41:07.227Z

RichMatheisen-8856 answered Mar 19, '21 howbs2002-5879 commented Mar 19, '21

What's in your servers.txt file? If you're using the "-Identity" parameter in the Get-ADComputer that parameter only accepts a distinguishedName, a GUID, a SID, or a sAMAccount as a value. If your file contains only the names of computers you'll have to use -Filter instead of -Identity.

Assuming you have just computer names in that file, your script should look something like this:

 foreach ($server in (Get-Content C:\Scripts\servers.txt)) {
     $test = Get-ADComputer -Filter { Name -eq $server }
     if ($test) {
         Write-Output "Server object $server exists in AD" | Out-File C:\Scripts\AD_result.txt -Append
     }
     else {
         Write-Output "Server object $server does not exist in AD" | Out-File C:\Scripts\AD_result.txt -Append
     }
 }

When you use a filter there should never be an exception, so there's need/benefit to using a Try/Catch. Instead, just test the result to see if anything was returned.

· 1

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howbs2002-5879 · Mar 19, 2021 at 11:09 PM

Thank you.

0 ·

Answer 2 · 2021-03-19T07:35:02.987Z

IanXue-MSFT answered Mar 19, '21

Hi，

What are the ’server accounts‘ in the text file？You can check the value of $server in the foreach loop.

Best Regards,
Ian Xue
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