Using Saved Queries for Active Directory Management

Executive Summary:

The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in lets you create reusable LDAP queries to find Active Directory (AD) objects. The saved queries functionality in Active Directory Users and Computers is available only on Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. You can create saved queries using the wizardlike options in the Active Directory Users and Computers interface, or you can define custom queries by entering your own LDAP queries.

Saved queries are part of the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in and can be used to quickly find and administer specific sets of Active Directory (AD) objects by constructing simple LDAP queries. With a query string such as

(objectCategory=computer)

you can get a complete listing of all the computers in your domain, then administer each one of those computer objects if you need to. Saved queries were introduced in Windows Server 2003 and can be deployed on Windows XP SP2 by installing the Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack. However, saved queries still don't seem to be as widely used as they could be—possibly because administrators don't know how useful they are or how to create them. Let's see if we can change that. . . .