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How to Get the list of all User Accounts of Windows in C#? [duplicate]

How can I get a list of users from active directory? Is there a way to pull username, firstname, lastname? I saw a similar post where this was used:
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "YOURDOMAIN");
I have never done anything with active directory so I am completely lost. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

If you are new to Active Directory, I suggest you should understand how Active Directory stores data first.
Active Directory is actually a LDAP server. Objects stored in LDAP server are stored hierarchically. It's very similar to you store your files in your file system. That's why it got the name Directory server and Active Directory
The containers and objects on Active Directory can be specified by a distinguished name. The distinguished name is like this CN=SomeName,CN=SomeDirectory,DC=yourdomain,DC=com. Like a traditional relational database, you can run query against a LDAP server. It's called LDAP query.
There are a number of ways to run a LDAP query in .NET. You can use DirectorySearcher from System.DirectoryServices or SearchRequest from System.DirectoryServices.Protocol.
For your question, since you are asking to find user principal object specifically, I think the most intuitive way is to use PrincipalSearcher from System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement. You can easily find a lot of different examples from google. Here is a sample that is doing exactly what you are asking for.
using (var context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "yourdomain.com"))
{
using (var searcher = new PrincipalSearcher(new UserPrincipal(context)))
{
foreach (var result in searcher.FindAll())
{
DirectoryEntry de = result.GetUnderlyingObject() as DirectoryEntry;
Console.WriteLine("First Name: " + de.Properties["givenName"].Value);
Console.WriteLine("Last Name : " + de.Properties["sn"].Value);
Console.WriteLine("SAM account name : " + de.Properties["samAccountName"].Value);
Console.WriteLine("User principal name: " + de.Properties["userPrincipalName"].Value);
Console.WriteLine();
}
}
}
Console.ReadLine();
Note that on the AD user object, there are a number of attributes. In particular, givenName will give you the First Name and sn will give you the Last Name. About the user name. I think you meant the user logon name. Note that there are two logon names on AD user object. One is samAccountName, which is also known as pre-Windows 2000 user logon name. userPrincipalName is generally used after Windows 2000.

If you want to filter y active accounts add this to Harvey's code:
UserPrincipal userPrin = new UserPrincipal(context);
userPrin.Enabled = true;
after the first using. Then add
searcher.QueryFilter = userPrin;
before the find all. And that should get you the active ones.

PrincipalContext for browsing the AD is ridiculously slow (only use it for .ValidateCredentials, see below), use DirectoryEntry instead and .PropertiesToLoad() so you only pay for what you need.
Filters and syntax here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/5392.active-directory-ldap-syntax-filters.aspx
Attributes here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/adschema/attributes-all
using (var root = new DirectoryEntry($"LDAP://{Domain}"))
{
using (var searcher = new DirectorySearcher(root))
{
// looking for a specific user
searcher.Filter = $"(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(sAMAccountName={username}))";
// I only care about what groups the user is a memberOf
searcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("memberOf");
// FYI, non-null results means the user was found
var results = searcher.FindOne();
var properties = results?.Properties;
if (properties?.Contains("memberOf") == true)
{
// ... iterate over all the groups the user is a member of
}
}
}
Clean, simple, fast. No magic, no half-documented calls to .RefreshCache to grab the tokenGroups or to .Bind or .NativeObject in a try/catch to validate credentials.
For authenticating the user:
using (var context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain))
{
return context.ValidateCredentials(username, password);
}

Certainly the credit goes to #Harvey Kwok here, but I just wanted to add this example because in my case I wanted to get an actual List of UserPrincipals. It's probably more efficient to filter this query upfront, but in my small environment, it's just easier to pull everything and then filter as needed later from my list.
Depending on what you need, you may not need to cast to DirectoryEntry, but some properties are not available from UserPrincipal.
using (var searcher = new PrincipalSearcher(new UserPrincipal(new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, Environment.UserDomainName))))
{
List<UserPrincipal> users = searcher.FindAll().Select(u => (UserPrincipal)u).ToList();
foreach(var u in users)
{
DirectoryEntry d = (DirectoryEntry)u.GetUnderlyingObject();
Console.WriteLine(d.Properties["GivenName"]?.Value?.ToString() + d.Properties["sn"]?.Value?.ToString());
}
}

Include the System.DirectoryServices.dll, then use the code below:
DirectoryEntry directoryEntry = new DirectoryEntry("WinNT://" + Environment.MachineName);
string userNames="Users: ";
foreach (DirectoryEntry child in directoryEntry.Children)
{
if (child.SchemaClassName == "User")
{
userNames += child.Name + Environment.NewLine ;
}
}
MessageBox.Show(userNames);

Finding Active Directory users from 2 OU

I have a .Net application that reads user from active directory that is in a specific OU (ABCUsers). The following is the code:
string DomainIP = "some domain IP";
string ContainerConnectionString = "OU=ABCUsers,DC=test,DC=com";
PrincipalContext domain = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, DomainIP, ContainerConnectionString, ContextOptions.SimpleBind);
PrincipalSearcher searcher = new PrincipalSearcher();
UserPrincipal findUser = new UserPrincipal(domain);
findUser.SamAccountName = "some username";
searcher.QueryFilter = findUser;
UserPrincipal foundUser = (UserPrincipal)searcher.FindOne();
The above code works fine, but I need to change the code so that it retrieves a user whether he/she is in OU=ABCUsers or OU=XYZUsers but not in any other OU.

(update: reading it again)
function/loop solution
(I would nevertheless prefer the solution with the Global Catalog below, because it is much less code and more robust.)
Since it would probably not work with an OR-LDAP-search string when not using the Global Catalog as explained below, you could just kind of repeat the above (I guess working) code for the two OUs similar to this when put e.g. in a separate function (pseudo code):
UserPrincipal findUserInOu( String ou ) {
string DomainIP = "some domain IP";
string ContainerConnectionString = "OU=" + ou + ",DC=test,DC=com";
// ... above code continued
}
UserPrincipal foundUser = findUserInOu("ABCUsers");
if ( foundUser == null )
foundUser = findUserInOu("XYZUsers");
GlobalCatalog solution
As I said here, to do it with some OR-search string etc. did not work for me and it seems, you may have to use the Global Catalog service (on the default port 3268, if you have a MS Active Directory otherwise I don't know if other directory services would have this feature).
I guess you would have to specify this on the PrincipalContext which may use some other default (389?).

Accessing AD (active directory) Properties

I access the AD properties thru the below method. It works fine in my Local VHD (where I'm the domain/local/enterprise Admin) - but the same doesn't work when I access from a Domain user(who has only local admin access).
But the same Domain user(only with local admin access) access all the AD property details using the ADExplorer(SysInternal) tools.
Is it because that is unmanaged code and have Windows APIs to access and in .Net I need domain admin or some privilege ?
Or is there another way - which I'm missing in .Net to access the AD Properties without having an extra domain-level-privilege ??
public void getCurrentUserADDetails(string UserName)
{
string ladpQueryStr = "LDAP://sp.com";
DirectoryEntry dirEntry = new DirectoryEntry(ladpQueryStr);
DirectorySearcher srch = new DirectorySearcher(dirEntry);
srch.Filter = "(cn=" + UserName.ToLowerInvariant().Trim() + ")";
srch.PropertiesToLoad.Add("name");
srch.PropertiesToLoad.Add("memberOf");
srch.PropertiesToLoad.Add("prop123");
SearchResult searcResult = srch.FindOne();
if (searcResult != null)
{
ResultPropertyCollection propertiesCollection = searcResult.Properties;
List<DisplayClass> grdDataList = new List<DisplayClass>();
foreach (string strKey in propertiesCollection.PropertyNames)
{
DisplayClass dispC = new DisplayClass();
dispC.pName = strKey;
dispC.pValue = Convert.ToString(propertiesCollection[strKey][0]);
grdDataList.Add(dispC);
}
dataGridView1.DataSource = grdDataList;
}
}
This is going to run in ASP.Net
thanks in advance :)

I assume you're using integrated authentification - in order for this to work you have to setup account delegation, unless you're running your application on a domain controller. This is a pretty tricky process, but there are a ton of info in Google.

By using Explicit authentication and changing the Search filter, i got the results.
DirectoryEntry dirEntry = new DirectoryEntry(path, username, password, AuthenticationType);

C# enable user account with DirectoryEntry

I want to know if user account enable. I use this code:
var usersList = new List<DirectoryEntry>();
DirectoryEntry localMachine = new DirectoryEntry("WinNT://" + computerName + ",Computer", Settings.UserName,Settings.UserPassword);
DirectoryEntry admGroup = localMachine.Children.Find(Settings.AdministratorsGroup, "group");
object members = admGroup.Invoke("members", null);
foreach (object groupMember in (IEnumerable)members)
{
DirectoryEntry member = new DirectoryEntry(groupMember);
var b = member.Properties["userAccountControl"].Value; // <---- value == null
usersList.Add(member);
}
I get all members correctly.
But an error is appeared in member.Properties["userAccountControl"].Value. I know of using System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement namepsace, but i want to know why this code doesn't work.

You're using the WinNT:// provider, which is very limited in its abilities. It doesn't support many of the usual properties that the full-blown LDAP:// provider has - and I would think that's probably the reason why this code setting userAccountControl (which is an LDAP attribute, most likely not present and not support on a local user account) doesn't work.
See Richard Mueller's article WinNT vs. LDAP for a lot more information on what WinNT:// can do (or cannot do)

How can I get a list of users from active directory?

How can I get a list of users from active directory? Is there a way to pull username, firstname, lastname? I saw a similar post where this was used:
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "YOURDOMAIN");
I have never done anything with active directory so I am completely lost. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

If you are new to Active Directory, I suggest you should understand how Active Directory stores data first.
Active Directory is actually a LDAP server. Objects stored in LDAP server are stored hierarchically. It's very similar to you store your files in your file system. That's why it got the name Directory server and Active Directory
The containers and objects on Active Directory can be specified by a distinguished name. The distinguished name is like this CN=SomeName,CN=SomeDirectory,DC=yourdomain,DC=com. Like a traditional relational database, you can run query against a LDAP server. It's called LDAP query.
There are a number of ways to run a LDAP query in .NET. You can use DirectorySearcher from System.DirectoryServices or SearchRequest from System.DirectoryServices.Protocol.
For your question, since you are asking to find user principal object specifically, I think the most intuitive way is to use PrincipalSearcher from System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement. You can easily find a lot of different examples from google. Here is a sample that is doing exactly what you are asking for.
using (var context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "yourdomain.com"))
{
using (var searcher = new PrincipalSearcher(new UserPrincipal(context)))
{
foreach (var result in searcher.FindAll())
{
DirectoryEntry de = result.GetUnderlyingObject() as DirectoryEntry;
Console.WriteLine("First Name: " + de.Properties["givenName"].Value);
Console.WriteLine("Last Name : " + de.Properties["sn"].Value);
Console.WriteLine("SAM account name : " + de.Properties["samAccountName"].Value);
Console.WriteLine("User principal name: " + de.Properties["userPrincipalName"].Value);
Console.WriteLine();
}
}
}
Console.ReadLine();
Note that on the AD user object, there are a number of attributes. In particular, givenName will give you the First Name and sn will give you the Last Name. About the user name. I think you meant the user logon name. Note that there are two logon names on AD user object. One is samAccountName, which is also known as pre-Windows 2000 user logon name. userPrincipalName is generally used after Windows 2000.

If you want to filter y active accounts add this to Harvey's code:
UserPrincipal userPrin = new UserPrincipal(context);
userPrin.Enabled = true;
after the first using. Then add
searcher.QueryFilter = userPrin;
before the find all. And that should get you the active ones.

PrincipalContext for browsing the AD is ridiculously slow (only use it for .ValidateCredentials, see below), use DirectoryEntry instead and .PropertiesToLoad() so you only pay for what you need.
Filters and syntax here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/5392.active-directory-ldap-syntax-filters.aspx
Attributes here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/adschema/attributes-all
using (var root = new DirectoryEntry($"LDAP://{Domain}"))
{
using (var searcher = new DirectorySearcher(root))
{
// looking for a specific user
searcher.Filter = $"(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(sAMAccountName={username}))";
// I only care about what groups the user is a memberOf
searcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("memberOf");
// FYI, non-null results means the user was found
var results = searcher.FindOne();
var properties = results?.Properties;
if (properties?.Contains("memberOf") == true)
{
// ... iterate over all the groups the user is a member of
}
}
}
Clean, simple, fast. No magic, no half-documented calls to .RefreshCache to grab the tokenGroups or to .Bind or .NativeObject in a try/catch to validate credentials.
For authenticating the user:
using (var context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain))
{
return context.ValidateCredentials(username, password);
}

Certainly the credit goes to #Harvey Kwok here, but I just wanted to add this example because in my case I wanted to get an actual List of UserPrincipals. It's probably more efficient to filter this query upfront, but in my small environment, it's just easier to pull everything and then filter as needed later from my list.
Depending on what you need, you may not need to cast to DirectoryEntry, but some properties are not available from UserPrincipal.
using (var searcher = new PrincipalSearcher(new UserPrincipal(new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, Environment.UserDomainName))))
{
List<UserPrincipal> users = searcher.FindAll().Select(u => (UserPrincipal)u).ToList();
foreach(var u in users)
{
DirectoryEntry d = (DirectoryEntry)u.GetUnderlyingObject();
Console.WriteLine(d.Properties["GivenName"]?.Value?.ToString() + d.Properties["sn"]?.Value?.ToString());
}
}

Include the System.DirectoryServices.dll, then use the code below:
DirectoryEntry directoryEntry = new DirectoryEntry("WinNT://" + Environment.MachineName);
string userNames="Users: ";
foreach (DirectoryEntry child in directoryEntry.Children)
{
if (child.SchemaClassName == "User")
{
userNames += child.Name + Environment.NewLine ;
}
}
MessageBox.Show(userNames);