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How to Find All Servers in Active Directory (PowerShell Script)

Separating servers from workstations in a computer account list matters for patching schedules, backup coverage, and just knowing your actual server footprint — but the built-in tools don't give you that split out of the box, and cross-referencing which of those servers are domain controllers usually means checking a second report.

The quick answer

Get-ADComputer -Filter "OperatingSystem -like '*Server*'" -Properties OperatingSystem |
    Select-Object Name, OperatingSystem

A more useful reporting script

#requires -Modules ActiveDirectory
<#
.SYNOPSIS
    Lists all server computer accounts in Active Directory.
#>

[CmdletBinding()]
param(
    [string]$SearchBase,
    [string]$OutputCsv
)

Import-Module ActiveDirectory -ErrorAction Stop

$dcNames = (Get-ADDomainController -Filter *).Name

$params = @{
    Filter     = { OperatingSystem -like '*Server*' }
    Properties = @('OperatingSystem', 'Enabled', 'LastLogonDate', 'DistinguishedName')
}
if ($SearchBase) { $params['SearchBase'] = $SearchBase }

$servers = Get-ADComputer @params |
    Select-Object Name,
                  OperatingSystem,
                  Enabled,
                  LastLogonDate,
                  @{Name = 'IsDomainController'; Expression = { $dcNames -contains $_.Name } },
                  DistinguishedName |
    Sort-Object Name

if (-not $servers) {
    Write-Host "No server computer accounts found." -ForegroundColor Yellow
    return
}

Write-Host "Found $(@($servers).Count) server computer account(s), $(@($servers | Where-Object IsDomainController).Count) of which are domain controllers." -ForegroundColor Cyan
$servers | Format-Table Name, OperatingSystem, Enabled, IsDomainController, LastLogonDate -AutoSize

if ($OutputCsv) {
    $servers | Export-Csv -Path $OutputCsv -NoTypeInformation
    Write-Host "Exported results to $OutputCsv" -ForegroundColor Green
}

The IsDomainController column cross-references the live DC list automatically, so you get "member servers only" and "everything including DCs" in the same output without running a second command and comparing lists by hand.

Why filtering on OperatingSystem is good enough here

There's no dedicated "is a server" flag on a computer object — OperatingSystem is a free-text string set at domain join time from the machine's actual OS, so *Server* catches every Windows Server edition without needing to enumerate specific version strings. It won't catch a Linux server joined to AD via a non-Windows OS string, which is worth keeping in mind in a mixed environment.

Where the manual approach runs out of road

A one-off script is fine for a single check. It starts to hurt once you actually need to run this regularly:

  • No scheduling. Cron/Task Scheduler can run the script, but now you own the scheduling, the credentials it runs as, and what happens when it silently fails.
  • No history. A CSV export is a snapshot. Was this the same five accounts as last month, or a growing list? A single export can't tell you.
  • No distribution. Getting the report to the right people (security, IT ops, compliance) on a schedule means building that plumbing yourself.
  • Multi-domain/multi-forest pain. Run it once per domain, reconcile the results yourself, and hope naming/OU conventions are consistent across all of them.
  • No alerting. If something changes unexpectedly between runs — an account re-enabled, a privileged group gaining a member — nothing tells you until you happen to run the script again.

None of that is a PowerShell problem. It's what turns a script into a product.

What SysFlint AD does instead

Our SysFlint AD runs the same kind of discovery shown above automatically, on a schedule, entirely inside your own network. No agents on domain controllers, no data leaving your environment. It's free, forever.

If you're currently doing this with a script on a scheduled task, here's the honest comparison between the two, or go straight to the download page.

Get this script, and the rest of them

The script above is part of awesome-it-scripts, SysFlint's free, open-source library of PowerShell scripts for Active Directory and other IT-admin tasks — no signup, no catch, MIT licensed. Grab this one directly from active-directory/Find-ADServerComputers.ps1, or browse the whole thing.

Find every disabled/locked-out/stale/privileged-account script we've published (plus the FAQ that goes with each one) in the repo's active-directory folder. Star it if it's useful — new scripts land there regularly.