Search code examples
powershellpowershell-3.0

Saving Get-ADObject result to variable gets slow when using -Properties

I'm trying to run the following cmdlet and save its output into my $query variable.

$query = Get-ADObject -Server $ldapServer -Credential $account -LDAPFilter "(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User)(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))" -SearchBase $ldapDN  -Properties "GivenName", "Mail"


The LDAP query runs pretty well, (about 10 seconds on a 6000+ LDAP database). The returned resultset contains about 150 user objects. The strange thing happens when trying to itterate over the $query variable like so:

$query

Or: 

foreach($object in $query){$object}

The iteration is incredibly slow (about 10-30 seconds per object)

Everything works fine and fast when the query is not saved to a variable, like running the command:

Get-ADObject -Server $ldapServer -Credential $account -LDAPFilter "(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User)(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))" -SearchBase $ldapDN  -Properties "GivenName", "Mail"


Also when using a formatting cmdlet like so:

$query = Get-ADObject -Server $ldapServer -Credential $account -LDAPFilter "(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User)(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))" -SearchBase $ldapDN  -Properties "GivenName", "Mail" | ft


However, I need the 'objects' for itteration. So Saving the text output doesn't help me here. Even more confusing, is when itterated over once by just calling '$query', the following calls to the once printed objects are processed fast in all further calls. Also, when the '-Properties' parameter is excluded from the 'Get-ADObject' cmdlet, the result saved to the $query varible is also processed quickly! The '-Properties' parameter appears to cause it to slow down, (so I guess it has nothing to do with memory limits, considering I have sufficient free memory).

Does anybody know:

  1. Why this happens?

  2. Why it happens only when using -properties?

  3. How to solve the problem / some workaround (I can't use the 'DirectorySearcher' class, since it's not possible to specify a user to run the 'LDAP' query for that class, and calling 'runas' is not an option).

Solution

  • try with select-object that convert $query in a pscustomobject

    $query = Get-ADObject -Server $ldapServer -Credential $account `
-LDAPFilter "(&(objectCategory=Person)(objectClass=User)(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))"  -SearchBase $ldapDN `
 -Properties "GivenName", "Mail" | select givenname, mail