Error while running script. Exception calling "add "

Question

Firstly I want to thank the community for all the help in a previous inquiry I had. Now I found the below code in this site that creates remotely a local user and adds it in the administrator group in pcs taken from a list. The problem is that when I run it and while it creates the user it gives me the error " error creating admin on: Exception calling add with 1 arguments. Type mismatch. (Exception from HRESULT:0x80020005)" . I tried putting the names of the pcs in the text file, in every possible way. Only pc name, full pc name (including domain), in capitals and not.

#Define variables
$computers = Get-Content C:\Computers.txt
#$computers = Import-CSV C:\Computers.txt | select Computer
$username = "Admin"
$password = "admin1"
$fullname = "Admin"
$local_security_group = "Administrators"
$description = "Description"

Foreach ($computer in $computers) {
    $users = $null
    $comp = [ADSI]"WinNT://$computer"

    #Check if username exists
    Try {
        $users = $comp.psbase.children | select -expand name
        if ($users -like $username) {
            Write-Host "$username already exists on $computer"

        } else {
            #Create the account
            $user = $comp.Create("User", "$username")
            $user.SetPassword("$password")
            $user.Put("Description", "$description")
            $user.Put("Fullname", "$fullname")
            $user.SetInfo()

            #Set password to never expire
            #And set user cannot change password
            $ADS_UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD = 0x10000
            $ADS_UF_PASSWD_CANT_CHANGE = 0x40
            $user.userflags = $ADS_UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD + $ADS_UF_PASSWD_CANT_CHANGE
            $user.SetInfo()

            #Add the account to the local admins group
            $group = ([ADSI]"WinNT://$computer/$local_security_group,group")
        $computerHostName = (Get-WmiObject -ComputerName $computer Win32_ComputerSystem).Name
        $group.Add([ADSI]"WinNT://$computerHostName/$username,user")

            #Validate whether user account has been created or not
            $users = $comp.psbase.children | select -expand name
            if ($users -like $username) {
                Write-Host "$username has been created on $computer"
            } else {
                Write-Host "$username has not been created on $computer"
            }
        }
    }

    Catch {
        Write-Host "Error creating $username on $($computer.path):  $($Error[0].Exception.Message)"
    }
}

Please help if you can, it will really save me alot of time if I make it work.

I would recommend using the built-in cmdlets for this instead of using ADSI. You can leverage this script: community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/…, since it creates the accounts and adds it to the administrators group. Just gotta use the -Credential it seems like, kinda confusing but it gets you in the right direction. — Abraham Zinala
– Abraham Zinala, Commented Apr 13, 2022 at 21:02

Doug Maurer · Accepted Answer · 2022-04-14 04:21:33Z

2

You have a couple of errors in your code.

For this line, you have an extra comma and the word 'group'.

$group = ([ADSI]"WinNT://$computer/$local_security_group,group")

Change this to

$group = ([ADSI]"WinNT://$computer/$local_security_group")

And for the Add call just pass the path to the new user like this

$group.Add($user.Path)

With the suggested changes your code is

#Define variables
$computers = Import-CSV C:\Computers.txt | ForEach-Object Computer
$username = "Admin"
$password = "admin1"
$fullname = "Admin"
$local_security_group = "Administrators"
$description = "Description"

Foreach ($computer in $computers) {
    $users = $null
    $comp = [ADSI]"WinNT://$computer"

    #Check if username exists
    Try {
        $users = $comp.psbase.children | ForEach-Object Name
        if ($users -like $username) {
            Write-Host "$username already exists on $computer"

        } else {
            #Create the account
            $user = $comp.Create("User", "$username")
            $user.SetPassword("$password")
            $user.Put("Description", "$description")
            $user.Put("Fullname", "$fullname")
            $user.SetInfo()

            #Set password to never expire
            #And set user cannot change password
            $ADS_UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD = 0x10000
            $ADS_UF_PASSWD_CANT_CHANGE = 0x40
            $user.userflags = $ADS_UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD + $ADS_UF_PASSWD_CANT_CHANGE
            $user.SetInfo()

            #Add the account to the local admins group
            $group = ([ADSI]"WinNT://$computer/$local_security_group")
            $computerHostName = (Get-WmiObject -ComputerName $computer Win32_ComputerSystem).Name
            $group.Add($user.Path)

            #Validate whether user account has been created or not
            $users = $comp.psbase.children | ForEach-Object Name
            if ($users -like $username) {
                Write-Host "$username has been created on $computer"
            } else {
                Write-Host "$username has not been created on $computer"
            }
        }
    }

    Catch {
        Write-Host "Error creating $username on $($computer.path):  $($Error[0].Exception.Message)"
    }
}

Finally, I would definitely stick with the CSV, any extra whitespace in the lines won't cause issues like with Get-Content.

edited Apr 14, 2022 at 4:21

answered Apr 14, 2022 at 2:13

Doug Maurer

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5 Comments

mklement0 Over a year ago

Nice, but note that the ,group suffix isn't extraneous: it is an object-type filter that serves to disambiguate, and can improve performance.

teo dallas Over a year ago

Thank you @Doug. I used your code which worked with a few tweaks and saved me. I kept the ,group suffix as @mklement0 said for performance reasons. For the rest when i was trying to run it with the csv it was giving me an unknown error 0x80005000 so I kept on using the GET which did the trick. Anyway thanks to you and this wonderful community!!!

Doug Maurer Over a year ago

Thank you @mklement0. Is the syntax correct? I got an error when running it but I did find the same suggestion on multiple sites. Hmm

mklement0 Over a year ago

@Doug, I don't know anything about the history of this feature, but does something like [adsi] "WinNT://./Administrators,group" result in an error for you? It works on my W10 21H2 machine.

mklement0 Over a year ago

I found the reference for this syntax, which indeed supports optional object-class suffixes such as ,group: such paths are called ADsPaths, and their format is described here.

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