Question

Hello everyone (this is my first post)
I have some simple AD code that i pulled from Codeplex http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/18102/Howto-Almost-Everything-In-Active-Directory-via-C) and i am able to get all of our end user’s information from said code. Now, I have been searching and searching and have found some interesting code snippets from here, and around the web regarding “Is the user locked out?”

I would like to use my code that I have been using for 2 years now, and just add a little bit more to it to add in the locked out part… I would be happy if there was a text box that gave me my info, or a check box, or something that just said “user locked” and then I would notify my Exchange team and have the user unlocked…

The code that I have is the following:

string eid = this.tbEID.Text;
string user = this.tbUserName.Text.ToString();
string path = "PP://dc=ds,dc=SorryCantTellYou,dc=com";

DirectoryEntry de = new DirectoryEntry(path);

DirectorySearcher ds = new DirectorySearcher(de);
ds.Filter = "(&(objectCategory=person)(sAMAccountName=" + eid + "))";

SearchResultCollection src = ds.FindAll();

//AD results
if (src.Count > 0)
{
   if (src[0].Properties.Contains("displayName"))
   {
      this.tbUserName.Text = src[0].Properties["displayName"][0].ToString();
   }
}

So, if I can figure out how to use the same directory entry, and searcher to show me the account lockout status that would be amazing.. please assist

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
• MSDN docs on System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement

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

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

// find a user
UserPrincipal user = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(ctx, "SamAccountName");

if(user != null)
{
    string displayName = user.DisplayName;

    if(user.IsAccountLockedOut())
    {       
        // do something here....    

    }
}

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