Metro App - How to detect if logged in with Live ID or Local Account

Question

I am building a Metro C# SkyDrive API on top of the Live Connect SDK (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/live/default) - in Windows 8 the user has the choice to SignIn to the Windows 8 machine with either a LOCAL account, or a LIVE account.

When using the Live Connect SDK, if I call

// assume wlscopes is properly set

LiveAuthClient liveAuthClient = new LiveAuthClient();
LiveLoginResult loginResult = await liveAuthClient.LoginAsync(wlscopes);

// do some stuff on skydrive

liveAuthClient.Logout();   // <-- issue only with live account, not local

when using a LOCAL account, it logs me out (great)

When I call the same code when using a LIVE account, I get an unhanded exception -- I cannot even add a try {} catch {} around this error.

Exception:

Cannot sign out from the application since the user account is connected. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8086000E)

Obviously since the user that is logged in under a Live account cannot logout, my api needs to detect if the current user is using a live account so I can prevent calling the logout() method.

so....My question is, how do I know which account type the user has signed in with in Windows 8?

Dodecagon

Why can't you just not log the user out of their account? Allow them to decide. What is the results of loginResult. I don't believe Microsoft will expose this sort of information otherwise it would lead to malware that targets your Windows Live session. – Indrawn

When you log into windows 8 with a live account, you cannot 'log out' until you switch to another account or a local account...windows 8 keeps you signed into everything. I agree, they may not expose this, but then the SDK is throwing an un-handleable error...so how do I prevent that? – Dodecagon

Answer 1

Found the answer: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.security.authentication.onlineid.onlineidauthenticator.cansignout.aspx#Y0

Below is the property that we need to use:

Windows.Security.Authentication.OnlineId.OnlineAuthenticator.CanSignOut

Code Example:

    public async Task<bool> Logout()
    {
        // Check to see if the user can sign out (Live account or Local account)
        var onlineIdAuthenticator = new OnlineIdAuthenticator();
        var serviceTicketRequest = new OnlineIdServiceTicketRequest("wl.basic", "DELEGATION");
        await onlineIdAuthenticator.AuthenticateUserAsync(serviceTicketRequest);

        if (onlineIdAuthenticator.CanSignOut)
        {
            LiveAuthClient.Logout();               
        }

        return true;
    }

Dodecagon