Working in an environment where users are constantly coming and going can be a bit of a stress sometimes especially when it’s housekeeping time! Luckily we have a warehouse that runs every night and updates our MIS systems with current user info.. We then export that information and do a bit of DSMOD trickery to separate old from new (Neanderthal I know but what can you do?).

Anyway, the problem was that we have never addressed the old user home directories when carrying out the above, leaving a back log and using up a fair bit of space. So i thought I’d give PowerShell a go and see how much scripting effort it would take to get rid and free up some much needed space.

This post assumes that

• You have at least got the October 2010 CU
• Photos are stored in the thumbnailPhoto attribute in Active Directory (See here for instructions
• The User Profile Service Application is configured
• There is a synchronization connection to your Active Directory

You recieve the following security error from SharePoint 2010 Central Admin:

• The Unattended Service Account Application ID is not specified or has an invalid value.

Explanation: “The Unattended Service Account is a single account that all documents can use to refresh data. It is required when connecting to data sources external to SharePoint, such as SQL. Without a valid Unattended Service Account Application ID, Visio Graphics Services will not be able to refresh Web Drawings that are connected to external data sources. The rule for the Unattended Service Account Application ID failed. The ID does not exist. Visio Graphics Service”

TechNet article about Planning the Secure Service here.

If you are using Ubuntu server behind a proxy you will need to manually add it. There are a few ways of doing this but this is what worked for me..

There are so many scripts that will do this for you and as good as it is to be knee deep in Power Shell, sometimes it’s handy to have a decent GUI tool knocking about. My favorite (and one of the only ones that I have seen that does what it says on the tin) is Bulk AD Users by WiseSoft It’s as simple as a connecting to your AD DS instance and updating the attribute that you want to change. In this case, unless there are other requirements, I recommend using the thumbnailPhoto attribute as it interfaces nicely with Exchange and SharePoint 2010.