AD Clean Up

[WalshamWarrior]

I have been assigned the task of cleaning up Active Directory on our servers. By cleaning up I mean removing any computers that haven't been logged on or used in the past 3 months. I am struggling to find a way to discover the computers before I can remove them. I was looking into doing a report of some kind using Group Policy however I am unsure on how you produce such a report and whether it is even anything to do with Group Policy.

 

If anyone can provide any advice or instructions to solving the matter I would be very grateful.

[cullingsh]

Well, I can think of a couple of options. in AD, if you go to the View menu, select Add/Remove Columns, you add 'Modified' as a field. Having just tried this I can see computers which are likely to have been used recently, and some which I got rid of ages ago and neglected to do anything with. Not sure what it classes modified as but certainly items which haven't been on for a while have an older date.

 

Second option is to look in DNS. Sort it by date, those with dates further in the future have been used more recently.

 

Shaun

[sted]

have a look at adtidy Cjwdev | AD Tidy I use that every now and then to DISABLE old user/pc accounts then if nobody complains after a few months I bin them

[witch]

@WalshamWarrior

I use a free prog called AD Tidy - works very well - gives all sorts of info about what was logged on when etc

[halbaradkenafin]

I'd advise that you just disable the computer accounts and move them to an OU for it. Then in a month or two when no one reports any issues you can delete them.

[Firefox]

I'd advise that you just disable the computer accounts and move them to an OU for it. Then in a month or two when no one reports any issues you can delete them.

 

Or if using Windows Server 2012 R2 and the recycle bin feature is enabled....just delete them and restore if need be (so easy to use in 2012)

[MatthewL]

I used to run OldCmp and then disable said computers and move to a new OU created and then delete 30 days later to prove no use.

[sted]

Or if using Windows Server 2012 R2 and the recycle bin feature is enabled....just delete them and restore if need be (so easy to use in 2012)

 

iirc that's not on by default though and needs domain/forest levels fairly high

[Firefox]

iirc that's not on by default though and needs domain/forest levels fairly high

 

It requires your domain and forest levels to be 2008 R2 I believe.....it's not on by default, but on a Windows Server 2012 R2 DC it's a click of a button :-)

[fiza]

+1 for AD Tidy