I received the following message today when trying to delete a computer object from Active Directory:

Object %COMPUTERNAME% is a container and contains other objects. Are you sure you want to delete object %COMPUTERNAME% and the objects it contains? This operation could take a long time if  %COMPUTERNAME% contains a large number of objects.

AD Message: Object is a container and contains other objects. Are you sure you want to delete object and the objects it contains image 1

Table of Contents

    To determine which sub-objects this message referred to, I opened Active Directory Users and Computers.

    I then selected View > User, Groups, and Computers as Containers.

    AD Message: Object is a container and contains other objects. Are you sure you want to delete object and the objects it contains image 2

    I found the computer object in question, and expanded the plus sign to the left of the object name.  The sub-object was named msmq, and a Google search showed me it was a part of Microsoft Message Queuing.

    Since this computer was about to reimaged, I didn’t have any problem with deleting the computer object, along with it’s msmq sub-object.

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *