Sometimes while looking at somebody’s else ADDS environment you may want to know some basics about it – things such as total number of users, or in which OU this specific server is hiding. What surprises me a lot is that how frequently you can see people telling you that they don’t have right consoles here on this server (while their just in one PoSh line from all they need), or they not sure if they have permissions (which they usually do have). If you are lucky you just spend some time waiting for a person switching over to some other machine or directly to DC (yes to DC, just because ADUC console lives there 🙂 ), or in some other cases you will be dragged through multiple redirects / additions of people to the call only to end up explaining final person in that chain exact steps to be performed to get your questions answered (which you were perfectly able to do without switching servers and involving other people, in the first place).
Unless you already got it, it is more preferable and faster just to do yourself a favor of comfortably staying on the server where you working and issue Install-WindowsFeature RSAT-AD-PowerShell to solve missing tools problem in 20 seconds, and then, use PoSh to get your questions answered. Here is sample PS function, which I named similarly to CHKDSK (thing of which I have very fond memories ever since I use it to help my classmate to repair his HDD at the time of 1-2 GB hard drives and Windows 95) – ADDSCHK:
In the world where increasing number of people does not hone their “I can do this in N ways” skills (and sometimes even “I understand how it works” too), you frequently better off speaking PoSh with infrastructure directly than with those who entrusted to keep it up and running 🙂