way to script an export of all AD users vcards - active-directory

Question

i'm looking for an easy way to export all active directory users info into unique vcards for each. there is some info i'd like to leave out of the vcard like home phone, and emergency contact. i've looked around the web and have little luck finding anything. any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I doubt there will be a very easy way. Ultimately, you need to
enumerate all your users (or a subset therefore)
iterate over the resulting list of users
export each user's data to a VCard
For the searching & iterating part, you can use a PrincipalSearcher to do your searching:
// create your domain context
using (PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain))
{
// define a "query-by-example" principal - here, we search for a UserPrincipal
// this "QBE" user would give you the ability to further limit what you get back
// as results from the searcher
UserPrincipal qbeUser = new UserPrincipal(ctx);
// create your principal searcher passing in the QBE principal
PrincipalSearcher srch = new PrincipalSearcher(qbeUser);
// find all matches
foreach(var found in srch.FindAll())
{
UserPrincipal foundUser = found as UserPrincipal;
if(foundUser != null)
{
ExportToVCard(foundUser);
}
}
}
And now all that's left to do is create the ExportToVCard function :-) See e.g. this blog post with code samples and further links for help.
If you haven't already - absolutely read the MSDN article Managing Directory Security Principals in the .NET Framework 3.5 which shows nicely how to make the best use of the new features in System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement. Or see the MSDN documentation on the System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement namespace.

Answer 2

If you just want the data itself, I would take a look at Softerra's free LDAP Browser, found here.
Setup a profile for your directory server - once it's connected in the browser, you'll see the default schema for the BaseDN you've provided during the initial setup. On the server icon, right click, and hit "Export Data".
The export wizard will walk you through most of the process, but the important part is Step 3. If you want to find all users, just set your search filter to (objectClass=user), make sure your search scope is SubTree, and then then edit what attributes you want to return.
You'll have to process the results into VCards, but this is the easiest\fastest way of getting all the users and attributes that you want.