As part of our logon script we have a Windows Script Host script that was failing with “Provider: Unspecified error” (mmn, helpful) but only on some Windows XP machines.

The offending line of code looked like this:

rs = con.Execute("<LDAP://DC=example,DC=com>; (sAMAccountName="+ username +"); ADsPath; subTree")

After some trial and error the fix was this (see if you can spot the difference):

rs = con.Execute("<LDAP://DC=example,DC=com>;(sAMAccountName="+ username +");ADsPath;subTree")

Can you see what it is? No spaces after the semicolons!

Alternatively the SQL-like syntax also seems to be a bit more forgiving:

rs = con.Execute("SELECT ADsPath FROM 'LDAP://DC=example,DC=com' WHERE sAMAccountName='"+ username +"'")

It appears that with some later version of ADSI ADsDSOObject (or to give it its full title, the “OLE DB Provider for Microsoft Directory Services”) the query syntax strictness has been relaxed. In any case “Unspecifed error” appears to mean “Syntax error” in this case.