If you just want to query ActiveDirectory, Net::LDAP is fine. But for writing, AD seems to have a problem with non-ASCII characters because (except within the distinguishedName) utf-8 is not used and Net::LDAP in version3 insists on writing utf-8.

• either use Encode to iso-8859-1 and use Net::LDAP version2, e.g.

  my $ldap = Net::LDAP->new($hostname,
                            version => 2)
    or die "Error: can't connect to '$hostname'";
  [download]

• or Win32::AD::User which is good for adding and editing users but doesn't support searches
• or use pure Win32::OLE (that's the way I prefer). Argel postet some very good links below.