Richard Siddaway's Blog

Saw a question on the forums that revolved around Get-ADUser filtering.

Initial code was like this

Import-Csv .\users.txt |
foreach {
  Get-ADUser -Filter {Name -like $_.Name}
}

which on the face of it seems reasonable. However, you get errors like this

Get-ADUser : Property: 'Name' not found in object of type:
'System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject'.
At line:3 char:3
+   Get-ADUser -Filter {Name -like $_.Name}
+   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Get-ADUser], ArgumentException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ActiveDirectoryCmdlet:System.ArgumentException,Microsoft
   .ActiveDirectory.Management.Commands.GetADUser

Change –like to –eq and you’ll still get the error.

This won’t work either:

Import-Csv .\users.txt |
foreach {
  Get-ADUser -Filter {Name -like $($_.Name)}
}

You get messages about path errors.

Import-Csv .\users.txt |
foreach {
  Get-ADUser -Filter {Name -like "$($_.Name)"}
}

will run but won’t return any data.

This will run and return the correct data.

Import-Csv .\users.txt |
foreach {
  $name = $_.Name
  Get-ADUser -Filter {Name -like $name}
}

Alternatively, you can use quotes so that the filter is a string

Import-Csv .\users.txt |
foreach {
  Get-ADUser -Filter "Name -like '$($_.Name)'"
}

Another option is to use the LDAP filter syntax

Import-Csv .\users.txt |
foreach {
  $name = $_.Name
  Get-ADUser -LDAPFilter "(Name=$name)"
}

Import-Csv .\users.txt |
foreach {
  Get-ADUser -LDAPFilter "(Name=$($_.Name))"
}

The help file about_activedirectory_filter is well worth reading. It doesn’t seem to be installed with the AD module on Windows Server 2016. You can read it on line at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh531527(v=ws.10).aspx

You’ll also see links to

about_ActiveDirectory  - overview of module

about_ActiveDirectory_Identity

about_ActiveDirectory_ObjectModel

Get-ADUser filtering isn’t the most obvious of topics to get your head round but these examples should help you make your filters work. If you’re building a complex filter build it up a step at a time so you can test each stage.