How can I get a list Local Windows Users (Only the Users that appear in the windows Logon Screen)

Question

How can I get a list of Local Windows Users (Only the Users that appear in the windows Logon Screen)

I have tried many methods using Windows Principle library & WMI Select commands. I keep getting Administrator, Guest & some other bizarre accounts (VUSRNEIL-DELL, $HOMEGROUPUSER, ASPNET...etc.)

Neither of these 3 user accounts appear on the Logon screen. How can I Differentiate between these user types?

I am coding in C#

Hindenburg

Answer 1

Just add a reference to System.Management in a Console Application and try this code:

using System;
using System.Management;
using System.Linq;

namespace ConsoleApplication5
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ManagementObjectSearcher usersSearcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(@"SELECT * FROM Win32_UserAccount");
            ManagementObjectCollection users = usersSearcher.Get();

            var localUsers = users.Cast<ManagementObject>().Where(
                u => (bool)u["LocalAccount"] == true &&
                     (bool)u["Disabled"] == false &&
                     (bool)u["Lockout"] == false &&
                     int.Parse(u["SIDType"].ToString()) == 1 &&
                     u["Name"].ToString() != "HomeGroupUser$");

            foreach (ManagementObject user in localUsers)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Account Type: " + user["AccountType"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Caption: " + user["Caption"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Description: " + user["Description"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Disabled: " + user["Disabled"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Domain: " + user["Domain"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Full Name: " + user["FullName"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Local Account: " + user["LocalAccount"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Lockout: " + user["Lockout"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Name: " + user["Name"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Password Changeable: " + user["PasswordChangeable"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Password Expires: " + user["PasswordExpires"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Password Required: " + user["PasswordRequired"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("SID: " + user["SID"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("SID Type: " + user["SIDType"].ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Status: " + user["Status"].ToString());
            }

            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

Bushel

This works well, but can be slow. When I run it on a Windows 7 domain member, my whole application runs in 5 seconds. When I run it on a Windows 2008 Server, my whole application takes almost 3 minutes. Most of the difference is pauses while iterating through the found users. – Dependency

localusers is in your example an unused variable, for what is it in the demo? – Inedible

localusers is used in for cycle. You could use a foreach. – Uis

Answer 2

If you're using WMI to query Win32_UserAccount you can display only items that meet following conditions:

• Property AccountType has the UF_NORMAL_ACCOUNT flag.
• Property Disabled is false.
• Property Lockout is false.
• Property LocalAccount is true.
• Property SIDType is SidTypeUser.

If you can't use WMI (or you do not want to use it) then you have to do a little bit more work, basically you have to use NetGroupGetUsers function to enumerate all users. See this article on CodeProject for an example.

Prose

Answer 3

If you want to use a wrappered solution, NuGet has the "Continuous.Management" package - which is an open source project: https://github.com/jarzynam/continuous

Psychophysiology

Answer 4

This will give you a list of all user accounts, their domain, full name and SID.

wmic useraccount get domain,name,sid

Fabyola

I like this, no wmi needed – Mcinnis