Reporting on AD Computers

Monitoring AD user accounts is an important task, and as you saw in “Reporting on AD Users” you can automate monitoring with PowerShell. Monitoring computer accounts can also be useful. And with larger numbers of computers to manage, you need all the help you can get.

A computer that has not logged on for an extended period could represent a security risk or could be a lost/stolen computer. It could also be a system you have not rebooted after applying patches and updates.

This recipe creates a report of computers that have not logged on or that you have not rebooted for a while.

One challenge in developing scripts like this is creating meaningful test data. If you wish to generate a test report showing a system that has not logged in for over 6 months, you might have to wait for 6 months to get the necessary data. This recipe offers a way around that, if only for testing purposes.

Getting ready

You run this recipe on SRV1 after you have installed...