Recipe 6.31 Modifying the Default Display Name Used When Creating Users in ADUC

6.31.1 Problem

You want to modify how the default display name gets generated when you create a new user through the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in.

6.31.2 Solution

6.31.2.1 Using a graphical user interface

Open ADSI Edit.
In the Configuration Naming Context browse to DisplaySpecifiers <Locale> where <Locale> is the locale for your language (e.g., the US English locale is 409).
Double-click on cn=user-Display.
Edit the createDialog attribute with the value you want the new default to be (e.g., %<sn>, %<givenName>).
Click OK.

6.31.2.2 Using VBScript

' This code modifies the default ADUC display name.
' ------ SCRIPT CONFIGURATION ------
strNewDefault = "%<sn>, %<givenName>"
strForestName = "<ForestDNSName>"     ' e.g. rallencorp.com
' ------ END CONFIGURATION ---------

Set objRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://" & strForestName & "/RootDSE")
Set objDispSpec = GetObject("LDAP://cn=User-Display,cn=409," & _
                              "cn=DisplaySpecifiers," & _
                              objRootDSE.Get("ConfigurationNamingContext"))
objDispSpec.Put "createDialog", strNewDefault
objDispSpec.SetInfo
WScript.Echo "New default for user's display name has been set to: " & _
              strNewDefault

6.31.3 Discussion

When you create a new user object in the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in, it will automatically fill in the Full Name field as you type in the First Name, Initials, and Last Name fields. As a convenience, you may want to alter that behavior so that it automatically fills in a different value. To do that, you need to modify the User-Display display specifier, which has the following distinguished name:

cn=user-Display,cn=<Locale>,cn=DisplaySpecifiers,cn=Configuration,<ForestRootDN>

<Locale> should be replaced with your language specific locale and <ForestRootDN> should contain the distinguished name for your forest root domain. You need to modify the createDialog attribute, which by default has no value. Replacement variables are presented by %<attribute>, where attribute is an attribute name. For example, if you wanted to make the default be "LastName, FirstName" you would use the following value: