Occasionally when testing a prototype Active Directory environment, you may need to create a large number of dummy domain users for testing purposes. You could go through the pain of creating a CSV file and using LDIFDE to create them, but here’s a much easier way. Simply use the FOR command together with DSADD to create users named user1, user2, user3 and so on. For example, to create 100 dummy users in the Vancouver OU of the contoso.com domain, run the following at a command prompt on your domain controller:
for /L %d in (1,1,100) do dsadd user cn=user%d,ou=Vancouver,dc=contoso,dc=com
Alternatively, you can replace % with %% and run the command within a batch file:
for /L %%d in (1,1,100) do dsadd user cn=user%%d,ou=Vancouver,dc=contoso,dc=com
***
Mitch Tulloch was lead author for the Windows Vista Resource Kit from Microsoft Press, which is the book for IT pros who want to deploy, maintain and support Windows Vista in mid- and large-sized network environments. Mitch was also the author of Introducing Windows Server 2008 and technical project lead for the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit, both books also from Microsoft Press. For more information on these and other books by Mitch, see www.mtit.com.
