Active Directory is one of the best and one of the most frustrating components Microsoft has ever given us. Luckily, there are third party tools that can make Active Directory administration easier.

Active Administrator is a comprehensive, integrated Active Directory management and auditing solution for tightening security, increasing productivity and improving business continuity in organizations with Windows networks.

If you manage a Windows network, you know that Active Directory is at the same time one of the best and one of the most frustrating components Microsoft has ever given us. It’s a powerful and complex database that gives us incredible flexibility in managing users, computers and resources – but navigating its structure with the standard Microsoft tools and maintaining security on its objects can be time consuming and tedious, especially in the enterprise environment.

Managing Active Directory “out of the box” requires the use of several different administrative tools built into Windows 2000/2003 server operating systems. With the release of the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC), Microsoft took a step in the right direction toward centralized management, but there’s still a lot to be desired.

Luckily, there are third party tools that can make Active Directory administration easier. We installed the evaluation version of ScriptLogic’s Active Administrator, which is billed as an enterprise-level AD management and auditing solution, and gave it a try on our test network. Here are our impressions of the product.

Key Benefits of Active Administrator:

* Centralize the audit trail of all Active Directory changes including the 'before' and 'after' values
* Instantly recover users, groups, OUs containers and more from AD backups and reduce network downtime
* Manage Group Policy for users and computers with advanced editing, analyzing, reporting and undo capabilities
* Secure Active Directory by controlling administrative rights: who can create accounts, change group memberships, reset passwords, update user information and more…

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