20.6 Summary

In this chapter, we reviewed the basics of ADO, which provides a robust search interface for Active Directory. While originally intended for databases, ADO was adapted to Active Directory to allow queries based on LDAP search filters or SQL. Several techniques for optimizing searches in Active Directory were reviewed, including a discussion of using objectclass versus objectcategory. We ended the chapter by covering a fully functional SearchAD procedure that can be used as is in any VBScript to easily search Active Directory based on specified criteria. SearchAD hides all the underlying ADO logic, including connection setup, query execution, and recordset manipulation.

After providing a good background for ADSI and ADO in Chapter 18 through Chapter 20, we are now ready to move to more practical applications. The next several chapters show some of the capabilities these interfaces provide and a lot of sample code to get you started.