Windows 2000 LDIFDE and CSVDE Utils

Beyond the simple feature of exporting the currently displayed contents pane, the AD Users and Computers snapin does not provide the functionality of exporting or importing recipient information. There is however two powerful console applications (LDIFDE and CSVDE) provided with Windows 2000 that can perform advanced exporting and importing functionality.

LDIFDE

LDIFDE supports batch operations based on LDAP Directory Interface Format (LDIF) files. LDIF is a file format standard for batch operations against LDAP conforming directories. Although LDIFDE is not included in Windows 2000 Professional, you can copy it from the server (\winnt\system32\) to your workstation and use it remotely to export and import data in AD. To view the general parameters of LDIFDE, open the command prompt and run the application without any arguments.

	ldifde -f c:\export.ldf -s dc1
	ldifde -f c:\export.ldf -s dc1 -d "CN=User Name,CN=Users,DC=domain,DC=com"
	ldifde -i c:\import.ldf -s dc1

CSVDE

The command syntax for CSVDE is the same as LDIFDE. Both tools have many features in common, only the resulting files are different. Column oriented files are better suited for semiautomated processing in Microsoft Excel 2000. It is advantageous to use the CSVDE utility if you are familiar with the processing of table data through Excel macros.