The Search Function

Automatic report generation in Listing 2 uses a subprocedure in the complete listing that you can download from Windows 2000 Magazine's Web site at http://www.win2000mag.com/articles. (Enter 8054 in the InstantDoc ID text box, and download the 8054.zip file.) This function uses ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) technology, which is part of Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), that you can use to access databases. When Microsoft designed Active Directory (AD), the company knew that users would need to rapidly search and retrieve result sets. Rather than create a new technology to search and retrieve this information, the company created a connector that lets users use ADO to search AD. This tool's job is to connect to AD and use certain criteria to return a multidimensional array of results. You'll find a detailed description of the basics of this subprocedure in Win32 Scripting Journal, "An ADSI Primer, Part 5: Using ADO to Script Fast ADSI Searches," May 1999 (http://www.win32scripting.com).