Question

Az you know every user that is defined in active directory has FirstName,LastName ,UserLoginName(sAMAccountName),Email,….
now i have FirstName+LastName of any users on my local network and i want to get UserLoginName of any users from server’s active directory.what can i do??
and here my code::

 DirectoryServices.SearchResult myResult;
 string filterString = string.Empty;
 string EntryString = "LDAP:// MyDomain";
 DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher myDirectorySearcher = new DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher(new DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry(EntryString));
 string tempStr;
 string[] splStr = new string[3];

 filterString = "CN="+FisrtAndLastNameOfUser;
 myDirectorySearcher.Filter = filterString;
 myDirectorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("UserName");
 myResult = myDirectorySearcher.FindOne();
 splStr = Regex.Split(myResult.Properties("UserName").Item(0).ToString, " ");
 tempStr = splStr(1).ToString + " " + splStr(0).ToString;
 Label1.Text = "Hello " + tempStr;

the outPut of splStr=null;
where is my wrong??
thanks alot.

Answer 1

If you’re on .NET 3.5 and up, you should check out the System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement (S.DS.AM) namespace. Read all about it here:

Managing Directory Security Principals in the .NET Framework 3.5

Basically, you can define a domain context and easily find users and/or groups in AD:

// set up domain context for default domain
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain);

// find user by name
UserPrincipal user = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(FirstAndLastNameOfUser);

// if found - access any of its properties
if(user != null)
{
   string userLoginName = user.SamAccountName;  // or whatever else you're looking for
}

The new S.DS.AM makes it really easy to play around with users and groups in AD: