{"id":3217,"date":"2013-07-19T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2013\/07\/19\/use-powershell-to-create-first-and-last-names-for-test-users\/"},"modified":"2013-07-19T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T00:01:00","slug":"use-powershell-to-create-first-and-last-names-for-test-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/use-powershell-to-create-first-and-last-names-for-test-users\/","title":{"rendered":"Use PowerShell to Create First and Last Names for Test Users"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong>: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, shows how to use Windows PowerShell to create first and last names in Active Directory for test users.<\/span>\n\"Hey, Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a test environment set up, and I created a bunch of users in an organizational unit in Active Directory. But I only created the user name—I did not create the first and the last names of the users. Now I would like to do this, but I am afraid it will be too much work. Should I go back to my original test script, or do you know a shortcut?\n—BW\n\"Hey, Hello BW,\nMicrosoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. Well, right now I am not drinking any tea. Nor coffee. Or even water. I am sitting here checking my email and checking out the latest build of Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1. It is looking really good, and I cannot wait for RTM. There is some really cool stuff here.\nAnyway, BW, I am going to make an assumption that you created your users by concatenating some characters.<\/p>\n

Note  <\/strong>For a great example of how to create users in Active Directory for test purposes, see the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog post, Create Test Users in a Test Active Directory Environment by Using PowerShell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

First, run the query<\/h2>\n

The first thing I do is run a query to see what I actually have in the target organizational unit (OU). I use the Get-ADUser<\/strong> cmdlet from the Active Directory module for this task. Here is the command and a sample of the output:<\/p>\n

PS C:> get-aduser -filter * -SearchBase ‘ou=testou,dc=iammred,dc=net’<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DistinguishedName : CN=newtestuser70,OU=Testou,DC=iammred,DC=net<\/p>\n

Enabled           : False<\/p>\n

GivenName         :<\/p>\n

Name              : newtestuser70<\/p>\n

ObjectClass       : user<\/p>\n

ObjectGUID        : c688679b-5207-49c2-89f2-33dc74d1ea0d<\/p>\n

SamAccountName    : newtestuser70<\/p>\n

SID               : S-1-5-21-1457956834-3844189528-3541350385-1440<\/p>\n

Surname           :<\/p>\n

UserPrincipalName :\nNote  <\/strong>The results that returned from Get-ADUser<\/strong> showed GivenName<\/strong> and Surname<\/strong>. In ADSI Edit, the attribute names are GivenName<\/strong> and SN<\/strong>.\nAll of the users are named newtestuser##<\/strong> (with a number at the end of the name). Therefore, I decide to split the name at the letter u. The first name (GivenName<\/strong>) will be NewTest <\/strong>for all of the users, and the last name (Surname<\/strong>) will be <\/em>User##<\/strong>. <\/em>\nTo do this, I use the Split<\/strong> command. An example of this technique is shown here:<\/p>\n

PS C:> get-aduser -filter * -SearchBase ‘ou=testou,dc=iammred,dc=net’ | % {$_.name –<\/p>\n

split ‘u’}<\/p>\n

newtest<\/p>\n

ser70<\/p>\n

newtest<\/p>\n

ser71\nThat works pretty well, but I want the last names to all be User##<\/strong> and not just Ser##<\/strong>.<\/em> So I need to add back the letter “U.” I don’t feel like doing that. So I decide to try a different approach and use the Substring<\/strong> <\/em>method from the String<\/strong> class. Because each user name is a string, I can call the Substring<\/strong> <\/em>method directly. To get the first name, I start at position 0, and I count over 7 characters. This comprises the entire first name, as shown here:<\/p>\n

PS C:> get-aduser -filter * -SearchBase ‘ou=testou,dc=iammred,dc=net’ | % {($_.name)<\/p>\n

.substring(0,7)  }<\/p>\n

newtest<\/p>\n

newtest\nAnd it is shown here for the last name:<\/p>\n

PS C:> get-aduser -filter * -SearchBase ‘ou=testou,dc=iammred,dc=net’ | % {($_.name)<\/p>\n

.substring(7)  }<\/p>\n

user70<\/p>\n

user71\nThe cool thing here is that the Substring <\/em>method begins at the position 7 and continues to the end of the word. So it works no matter how many characters are in the user’s name.<\/p>\n

Now to set the users’ first and last names<\/h2>\n

Now that I know the technique I will use, it is a matter of plug-and-play. Here is what I came up with (%<\/strong> is an alias for Foreach-Object<\/strong>):<\/p>\n

get-aduser -filter * -SearchBase ‘ou=testou,dc=iammred,dc=net’ |<\/p>\n

% {Set-ADUser -Identity $_ -GivenName ($_.name).substring(0,7)  -Surname ($_.name).substring(7)}\nI check to ensure that it worked:<\/p>\n

PS C:> get-aduser -filter * -SearchBase ‘ou=testou,dc=iammred,dc=net’<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DistinguishedName : CN=newtestuser70,OU=Testou,DC=iammred,DC=net<\/p>\n

Enabled           : False<\/p>\n

GivenName         : newtest<\/p>\n

Name              : newtestuser70<\/p>\n

ObjectClass       : user<\/p>\n

ObjectGUID        : c688679b-5207-49c2-89f2-33dc74d1ea0d<\/p>\n

SamAccountName    : newtestuser70<\/p>\n

SID               : S-1-5-21-1457956834-3844189528-3541350385-1440<\/p>\n

Surname           : user70<\/p>\n

UserPrincipalName :<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DistinguishedName : CN=newtestuser71,OU=Testou,DC=iammred,DC=net<\/p>\n

Enabled           : False<\/p>\n

GivenName         : newtest<\/p>\n

Name              : newtestuser71<\/p>\n

ObjectClass       : user<\/p>\n

ObjectGUID        : 3e0eb0b0-8ee7-49a1-96a2-bc20634f1648<\/p>\n

SamAccountName    : newtestuser71<\/p>\n

SID               : S-1-5-21-1457956834-3844189528-3541350385-1441<\/p>\n

Surname           : user71<\/p>\n

UserPrincipalName :\nBW, that is all there is to using the Substring<\/strong> <\/em>method to obtain the first and last names for test users in  Active Directory. Join me tomorrow when I will have a guest blog post by Jakob Gottlieb Svendsen. He will talk about a way cool WMI browser. You don’t want to miss it.\nI invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.\nEd Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, shows how to use Windows PowerShell to create first and last names in Active Directory for test users.  Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a test environment set up, and I created a bunch of users in an organizational unit in Active Directory. But I only created the user name—I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,3,198,45],"class_list":["post-3217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-active-directory","tag-scripting-guy","tag-users","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, shows how to use Windows PowerShell to create first and last names in Active Directory for test users.  Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a test environment set up, and I created a bunch of users in an organizational unit in Active Directory. But I only created the user name—I […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}