What if your security group has nested groups and users? Then those nested groups may also have additional nested groups and users. What does that query look like? How do you find all the members?

Suppose I have the following Example

TopLevelGroup — Global Security Group

TopLevel — User

TopLevel2 – User2

Nested1 – Global Security Group

Nested1 Members

Nested User

Nested User 2

InsideNested – Global Security Group

InsideNested Members

InsideNested1

There are several ways to do this, I’m not saying these are the only methods but these are three examples that work.

The first method is to use the PowerShell. For this example you will need the Quest AD Cmdlets. Thanks to MVP Dmitry Sotnikov for the Quest cmdlets.

Get-QADGroupMember “Group Name” -indirect

The second method is using ADFIND by MVP Joe Richards

adfind -default -bit -f “memberof:1.2.840.113556.1.4.1941:=DN of Group” samaccountname -nodn

More on that query here

Now on to method three. Some people (especially in classified networks) can’t install the Quest cmdlets or adfind (or any third party tool)

The Microsoft DStools can be used. For this example I’ll use dsquery and dsget

dsquery group -samid “group name” | dsget group -members -expand

If you’d like to learn more about Active Directory, I’d recommend that you get hold of these Active Directory Training Videos. If you truly want to Learn Active Directory you won’t find better training than this.