Searching for Objects in Active Directory
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In this lesson you will learn how to search for objects within Active Directory.
Step 1. Open Server Manager
Open Server Manager by clicking the Windows button and clicking Server Manager or by searching for Server Manager.
Step 2. Start Active Directory
In server manager, click Tools > Active Directory Users and Computers:
Step 3. Click the Find Objects button
Inside of Active Directory, click the Find objects in Active Directory Domain Services button at the top of the toolbar:
Step 4. Search Active Directory
Next you need to choose what you are searching for and where to look:
The find drop down lets you choose between the type of Object you are looking for. In our case, we are going to search for a user account, so we will leave it at the default option:
The in drop down will let you change the OU or domain you are searching for. You can also click Browse to select a specific OU.
Type in the name of the user you want to find and click Find Now. I am searching for Paul Hill (my user account in my lab environment):
Step 5. Use Wild Cards
You can also use the * character as a wildcard to find any user account that start with the letter p:
This is incredibly useful when you are unsure of the spelling of a user's name.
Step 6. Use an advanced search
If you click the Advanced tab you can search by object attributes:
You can click the field to add a new attribute to search by, like the city, country, division, department etc. This can also be useful for finding all the users with one common attribute.
Once you found your desired user, you can double click the user and browse to the Object tab to see the exact path of the user so you will know what OU the account is located in:
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