How to create users in Windows 2003, the easy way

If you use Windows Server 2008 and you need to create users in your Active Directory there is a good way to do it.

• You will need to use MS Excel for creating the command line to create your users.
• You will need to have administrative rights for the server where you wish to create the users on.

The normal is to get the name of the user and the email. It is ideal to get all the rest automatically.

Your Excel file should start like that:




How to separate a name from a lastname in Excel and divide them in 2 columns?

The first problem is that you might want to separate the Name from the Lastname in order to have a better DB or just to make a mail merge for a future email notifying with the new username and password. The formula (Office 2007) should be like that:

To retrieve the lastname the formula would be like that:

Then you can use any other formula or algorithm to generate the passwords. After you have that information you need the column that will generate the command line:

Of course the formula considers the names of the columns as I created them but you can modify that. The formula is not so visible on the image so here you have it: ="net user"&" "&Table1[[#This Row];[Username]]&" "&Table1[[#This Row];[Password]]&" /add /domain"

Then you will see how Excel magically transforms the information you have (emails and names) in the full command line you need for creating your users using the command prompt.

The last advise is to copy and pasthe the all the column, excluding the name of the column, in a TXT file to avoid problems of formatting. Now you can rename the the TXT file into a BAT file. The file should be moved to the server and executed, all the users would get instantly created.

Problems opening and editing Excel files from SharePoint? (Windows Vista?)

When using Windows Vista there is a special annoyance when working with files stored on a SharePoint 3 document library. I just lost one hour finding a solution and I would like to share it with all of you cursing Windows Vista.

The symptom is: all the files are opened in "read only" mode, therefore is not possible to edit the files and saving them on the same document. Excel pushes you to save it locally, and that is certainly terrible because then you have to upload the files to the SharePoint complicating the work and of course multiplying the chances of overwriting the wrong version of the same document.

What you need to do is to "Check out" the document. Then you can work as you did with Windows XP.

Then there are some other interesting ways of working with that system of checking in out. But that will be covered in a future post.