Delete multiple AD OUs that have protection on them

Question

I am trying to delete multiple ou's, not in the same parent\child structure but multiple OU's next to each other. Example:

OU=legal,OU=department,DC=company,DC=com
OU=marketing,OU=department,DC=company,DC=com
OU=advertising,OU=department,DC=company,DC=com

I can delete a single OU out with protection using the following:

Get-ADOrganizationalUnit -Identity 'OU=legal,OU=department,DC=company,DC=com' |
Set-ADObject -ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion:$false -PassThru |
Remove-ADOrganizationalUnit -Confirm:$false

But I'm unsure of how to get it to work with a foreach and a text file. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Run `help Get-Content` and `help ForEach-Object`. Look at examples. Create a short sample script and test using the `-WhatIf` parameter. You can do this. — Bill_Stewart, Aug 10 '18 at 01:13

Bernard Moeskops · Answer 1 · 2018-08-10T07:49:08.480

First I created the text file "C:\Temp\OU's.txt". With all the OU's inside it.

    $ous = Get-Content -Path "C:\Temp\OU's.txt"

foreach($ou in $ous){
    try{
        Get-ADOrganizationalUnit -Identity $ou |
        Set-ADObject -ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion:$false -PassThru |
        Remove-ADOrganizationalUnit -Confirm:$false -WhatIf
        Write-Host "Succesfully deleted $ou" -ForegroundColor Green
    }catch{
        Write-Host "Failed to delete $ou because '$($_.Exception.Message)'" -ForegroundColor Red
    }
}

Note the -WhatIf in the end like Bill_Stewart said, to make sure you only see what is about to happen! Remove it and all the OU's stated in the text file will be removed.

Delete multiple AD OUs that have protection on them

1 Answers1