Is there a way for MS Access to grab the current Active Directory user?

Question

I'm working on a spec for a piece of software for my company and as part of the auditing system I think it would be neat if there was a way to grab the current Active Directory user.

Hopefully something like:

Dim strUser as String
strUser = ActiveDirectory.User()
MsgBox "Welcome back, " & strUser

Saxony

Answer 1

Try this article - I have some code at work that will erm, work if this doesn't...

Relevant quote:

Private Declare Function GetUserName Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias "GetUserNameA" _
                    (ByVal IpBuffer As String, nSize As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetComputerName Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetComputerNameA" _
                    (ByVal lpBuffer As String, nSize As Long) As Long

Function ThisUserName() As String
    Dim LngBufLen As Long
    Dim strUser As String

    strUser = String$(15, " ")
    LngBufLen = 15

    If GetUserName(strUser, LngBufLen) = 1 Then
        ThisUserName = Left(strUser, LngBufLen - 1)
    Else
        ThisUserName = "Unknown"
    End If
End Function

Function ThisComputerID() As String
    Dim LngBufLen As Long
    Dim strUser As String

    strUser = String$(15, " ")
    LngBufLen = 15

    If GetComputerName(strUser, LngBufLen) = 1 Then
        ThisComputerID = Left(strUser, LngBufLen)
    Else
        ThisComputerID = 0
    End If
End Function

Norman

I was tempted to down-vote your link-only answer, but meh, let's just quote the fortunately not rotten link ;) – Harquebus

All good. Was a pretty shitty answer on reflection. Was the early days tho, the don't just link answers things wasn't as rigid as it is today, in my defence ;) Anyway, thanks for the edit. – Norman

Answer 2

Here's my version: it will fetch anything you like:

'gets firstname, lastname, fullname or username
Public Function GetUser(Optional whatpart = "username")
    Dim returnthis As String
    If whatpart = "username" Then GetUser = Environ("USERNAME"): Exit Function
    Set objSysInfo = CreateObject("ADSystemInfo")
    Set objUser = GetObject("LDAP://" & objSysInfo.USERNAME)
    Select Case whatpart
        Case "fullname": returnthis = objUser.FullName
        Case "firstname", "givenname": returnthis = objUser.givenName
        Case "lastname": returnthis = objUser.LastName
        Case Else: returnthis = Environ("USERNAME")
    End Select
    GetUser = returnthis
End Function

I got the original idea from Spiceworks.

Vermicular

Answer 3

Depending on environment variables to remain valid is a bad idea, since they can easily be changed within a user session.

Scauper

Answer 4

David made a very good point about risk of using environment variables. I can only add that there may be other problems with environment variables. Just look at this actual code fragment from our 5-year old project:

Public Function CurrentWorkbenchUser() As String

    ' 2004-01-05, YM: Using Application.CurrentUser for identification of 
    ' current user is very problematic (more specifically, extremely 
    ' cumbersome to set up and administer for all users). 
    ' Therefore, as a quick fix, let's use the OS-level user's 
    ' identity instead (NB: the environment variables used below must work fine
    ' on Windows NT/2000/2003 but may not work on Windows 98/ME)
    ' CurrentWorkbenchUser = Application.CurrentUser
    '
    ' 2005-06-13, YM: Environment variables do not work in Windows 2003. 
    ' Use Windows Scripting Host (WSH) Networking object instead.
    ' CurrentWorkbenchUser = Environ("UserDomain") & "\" & Environ("UserName")
    '
    ' 2007-01-23, YM: Somewhere between 2007-01-09 and 2007-01-20, 
    ' the WshNetwork object stopped working on CONTROLLER3. 
    ' We could not find any easy way to fix that.
    ' At the same time, it turns out that environment variables 
    ' do work on Windows 2003.
    ' (Apparently, it was some weird configuration problem back in 2005: 
    ' we had only one Windows 2003 computer at that time and it was 
    ' Will's workstation).
    '
    ' In any case, at the time of this writing, 
    ' returning to environment variables 
    ' appears to be the simplest solution to the problem on CONTROLLER3.
    ' Dim wshn As New WshNetwork
    ' CurrentWorkbenchUser = wshn.UserDomain & "\" & wshn.UserName

    CurrentWorkbenchUser = Environ("USERDOMAIN") & "\" & Environ("USERNAME")

End Function

Ebbarta

There is nothing wrong with CurrentUser() if you are actually using Jet user-level security. On the other hand, if you don't have any need for Jet ULS, then the Windows logon is an excellent alternative (though you still may have to maintain some kind of table of group memberships in your app). – Scauper