OK, so I decided to try to use VBScript to actually do something *useful*.

Big mistake.

Anyway, apparently there's some sort of way to use LDAP to look up 
properties of a user's account in Active Directory. But there's a 
problem: you can't do anything until you discover the Distinguished Name 
of the account object.

I've wasted literally 2 hours trying to find this trivial piece of 
information. Given how vitally important it is, you'd think there would 
be a field *somewhere* in the properties dialog that would tell you what 
the ****ing DN is, but noooooo...

So I see that it's supposed to be possible to solve this using VBScript 
too. There are at least a dozen websites that all contain code nearly 
identical to this:

   set trans = CreateObject("NameTranslate")
   trans.Init 3, ""
   trans.Set 3, "domain\user"
   set name = trans.Get(1)
   WScript.Echo name

Only trouble is... it doesn't work. I've tried rephrasing the code every 
way I can think of, but still all I get is "error 800A01A8 on line 4". 
Absolutely nothing I do will make this god-damned error go away so that 
I can get to the actual data I want.

I give up.

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>   set trans = CreateObject("NameTranslate")
>   trans.Init 3, ""
>   trans.Set 3, "domain\user"
>   set name = trans.Get(1)
>   WScript.Echo name
>
> Only trouble is... it doesn't work. I've tried rephrasing the code every 
> way I can think of, but still all I get is "error 800A01A8 on line 4". 
> Absolutely nothing I do will make this god-damned error go away so that I 
> can get to the actual data I want.

Try removing the "set" at the beginning of line 4. IIRC set is only used to 
assign a reference of an object to your variable, not a value.

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Invisible wrote:

>   set trans = CreateObject("NameTranslate")
>   trans.Init 3, ""
>   trans.Set 3, "domain\user"
>   set name = trans.Get(1)
>   WScript.Echo name
> 
> Only trouble is... it doesn't work.

Oh my god.

Apparently you have to delete the word "set" on line 4. And then it 
works perfectly. WTF?

2 hours to figure that out. Fantastic. >_<

It turns out that the DN is the user's real name, followed by the names 
of all the millions of OUs that the object is in, followed by the domain 
name. So my user account's DN is something like

   CN=Andrew, OU=Information Technology, OU=Departments, OU=Regular 
Users, OU=UK, OU=Sites, OU=Managed, DC=foo, DC=com

I much prefer referring to my user account by username. It's only 8 
characters. :-P

Still, at least fetching the email address worked without a hitch. And 
that was shortly followed by me obtaining the data I actually wanted: 
the date of the last password change. (WHY is this not in the GUI in the 
first place??)

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Invisible wrote:

> 2 hours to figure that out. Fantastic. >_<

I converted the script to JScript. This is much more familiar. 
Apparently the conversion isn't too difficult; you've got to replace 
"CreateObject" with "new ActiveXObject", and that's about it. The method 
syntax is also more regular.

I especially love the way that I get a different answer this way... (The 
date is formatted totally differently!)

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Invisible wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> 
>> 2 hours to figure that out. Fantastic. >_<
> 
> I converted the script to JScript. This is much more familiar.
> Apparently the conversion isn't too difficult; you've got to replace
> "CreateObject" with "new ActiveXObject", and that's about it. The method
> syntax is also more regular.
> 
> I especially love the way that I get a different answer this way... (The
> date is formatted totally differently!)

In case you didn't see it, I translated scott's VBScript example:

http://news.povray.org/4bd01976%241%40news.povray.org

into JScript:

http://news.povray.org/4bd20e90%40news.povray.org

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Invisible wrote:
> Apparently you have to delete the word "set" on line 4. And then it 
> works perfectly. WTF?

Yes. "Set" assigns objects. "Let" (or nothing) assigns non-objects. Welcome 
to OO BASIC. ;-)

> 2 hours to figure that out. Fantastic. >_<

That wasn't too bad.

>   CN=Andrew, OU=Information Technology, OU=Departments, OU=Regular 
> Users, OU=UK, OU=Sites, OU=Managed, DC=foo, DC=com

Welcome to X.500.  (OR is it X.400?)

> I much prefer referring to my user account by username. It's only 8 
> characters. :-P

And you can, until you want to know the *distinguished* name of the user. 
That's why they call it that. It's distinguished from all other users.

That list of names at the top will normally walk up the heirarchy of naming 
authorities, so it'll be you, at your department, at your company, as seen 
in Windows, in the UK, in the World.

> (WHY is this not in the GUI in the first place??)

Don't you start.


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Invisible escreveu:
> OK, so I decided to try to use X to actually do something *useful*.
> 
> Big mistake.

there, made a template for your posts.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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Invisible escreveu:
> Invisible wrote:
> 
>>   set trans = CreateObject("NameTranslate")
>>   trans.Init 3, ""
>>   trans.Set 3, "domain\user"
>>   set name = trans.Get(1)
>>   WScript.Echo name
>>
>> Only trouble is... it doesn't work.
> 
> Oh my god.
> 
> Apparently you have to delete the word "set" on line 4. And then it 
> works perfectly. WTF?
> 
> 2 hours to figure that out. Fantastic. >_<

yeah, nothing like good ol' RTFM instead of trial and error...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:
> Invisible escreveu:
>> OK, so I decided to try to use X to actually do something *useful*.
>> 
>> Big mistake.
> 
> there, made a template for your posts.

I'm now tempted to feed Invisible's posts to a markov chain algorithm and 
see what comes out of it...

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nemesis wrote:
> yeah, nothing like good ol' RTFM instead of trial and error...

To be fair, this is old tech, so MS doesn't exactly make it easy to find the 
documentation when you could be upgrading to VBNET.AWSOME.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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