HOWTO find the OU a user belongs to

If you’re a Windows sysadmin of the gun-for-hire kind of type (like me) you may have run into this situation: You need to find a user, in context. Not just find the user and change her maiden name or reset her password, but find in which Organizational Unit (AD lingo for “folder”) she belongs to. Or like in this specific case, find a similar user – that actually is a resource mailbox for a help desk queue – and create another one like that one. Since i’ve never created help desk queue “users” before, i wouldn’t have a clue where they should be put.

After some creative googling courtesy of our friendly in-house sysadmin Bob (thanks, Bob!) here’s the solution:

• Fire up the Active Directory Users and Computers admin thingy (i’m using the one on an Exchange server, but i guess the plain vanilla version will work just as well).
• From the View menu, engage the Advanced Features mode. That’s the trick.
• Now go and Find the user using your normal set of tricks. When found, double click the user to view its Properties sheet.
• Lo and behold! There is a new tab there, and it is called Object! Click it!
• Read out the Canonical name of object and weep of relief and happiness.
• Now close the Find dialog, because otherwise you can’t…
• navigate to the OU indicated the user resides in

Hallelujah!

Since this feature must be the Most Useful and Needed one, i cannot understand why it’s hidden behind an Advanced View, but such are the paths of an AD ninja… full of turns we must just accept if we cannot understand.