Checking for existence of OU

Question

How can I check for the existence of an organizational unit without using the [adsi]::Exists() method? I can't for the life of me get it work on my system.

I've tried and struggled with it. The documentation tells me little of use. It's too technically written, it assumes that you already understand it. — user8056359, Oct 23 '17 at 19:37
[This article](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee617236.aspx) gives nice examples of its use. `If (Get-ADOrganizationalUnit -Identity 'OU=Europe,CN=Users,DC=corp,DC=contoso,DC=com') {'It exists!'}` — Maximilian Burszley, Oct 23 '17 at 19:45
[Here's a good breakdown for you](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc977992.aspx) — Maximilian Burszley, Oct 23 '17 at 20:47
The problem here is that when it exists, it moves into the if-statement, but when it doesn't it spits out a nasty error. — user8056359, Oct 23 '17 at 20:59

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 23 '17 at 23:51

The Exists() method requires an LDAP URI as its argument:

$ou = 'ou=foo,dc=example,dc=com'
[adsi]::Exists("LDAP://$ou")

If you want to use the Get-ADOrganizationalUnit cmdlet instead: use the -Filter parameter rather than the -Identity parameter. The former is usually more forgiving with AD cmdlets:

$ou = 'ou=foo,dc=example,dc=com'
Get-ADOrganizationalUnit -Filter "distinguishedName -eq '$ou'"

Checking for existence of OU

1 Answers1