Membership in Account Operators, Domain Admins, or Enterprise Admins, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. Review details about using the appropriate accounts and group memberships at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83477.

Creating a new organizational unit

To create a new organizational unit using the Windows interface
  1. To open Active Directory Users and Computers, click Start, click Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Active Directory Users and Computers.

  2. In the console tree, right-click the domain name.

  3. Point to New, and then click Organizational Unit.

  4. Type the name of the organizational unit (OU).

Additional considerations

  • To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Account Operators group, Domain Admins group, or Enterprise Admins group in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority. As a security best practice, consider using Run as to perform this procedure.

  • Another way to open Active Directory Users and Computers is to click Start, click Run, and then type dsa.msc.

  • To add an OU, you can also click the domain or folder in which you want to add the OU, and then click the Create a new organizational unit in the current container icon on the toolbar.

  • You can also perform the task in this procedure by using the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell. To open the Active Directory module, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell. For more information, see Create a New Organizational Unit (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=138390). For more information about Windows PowerShell, see Windows PowerShell (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=102372).

Additional references

To create a new organizational unit using a command line
  1. To open a command prompt, click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.

  2. Type the following command, and then press ENTER:

    dsadd ou <OrganizationalUnitDN>

Parameter Description

<OrganizationalUnitDN>

Specifies the distinguished name of the OU to be added.

To view the complete syntax for this command, and for information about entering user account information, at a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

dsadd ou /? 

Additional considerations

  • To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Account Operators group, Domain Admins group, or Enterprise Admins group in AD DS, or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority. As a security best practice, consider using Run as to perform this procedure.

  • You can also perform the task in this procedure by using the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell. To open the Active Directory module, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell. For more information, see Create a New Organizational Unit (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=138390). For more information about Windows PowerShell, see Windows PowerShell (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=102372).

Additional references


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