Accessing Active Directory

Active Directory is the directory service for Windows and is the foundation of Windows distributed networks. You can use Active Directory to locate objects in a computer network domain, such as users, security policies, printers, distributed components, and other resources. The name Active Directory refers both to the directory service and the directory itself.

Note

For more information about support and installation of this component on a specific operating system, see Operating System Availability of WMI Components.

 

Windows makes Active Directory accessible through WMI by creating a set of references to every class and object contained in Active Directory. By accessing the Directory Services provider through WMI, you can create WMI-enabled applications that can access the wealth of information contained in Active Directory.

With these interfaces, you can:

• Retrieve classes and instances.
• Enumerate classes and instances.
• Create new instances.
• Modify existing instances.
• Delete existing instances.
• Query Active Directory.

The following topics can assist you in using Active Directory with WMI:

• Using the Proper Active Directory Syntax
• Mapping Active Directory to WMI