Finding user name of current logged in user using VB.NET

Question

I'm trying to get the user name of the current user. When I log in as Johnny Smith and run my application without administrator privileges it will return me the correct user name, Johnny Smith. But the problem is that when I right click and choose "Run as Administrator", Windows will prompt me with a login screen for the administrator and after login my application returns user name admin, not the user which is logged in currently.

I have tried:

strUserLabel.Text = Environment.UserName

Also

Dim WSHNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")
Dim strUser = ""

While strUser = ""
    strUser = WSHNetwork.Username
End While

strUserLabel.Text = strUser

Both return me the administrator user name when prompted as administrator.

`strUserLabel.Text = Environment.UserName` this should work because am using it many forms — Vivek S., Jun 23 '14 at 11:14
@MarioLIPCIK try `strUserLabel.Text = System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Name` and comment what you are getting — Vivek S., Jun 23 '14 at 11:33
@MarioLIPCIK `strUserLabel.Text =System.Environment.UserName` — Vivek S., Jun 23 '14 at 11:41
@hector `strUserLabel.Text = System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Name` returned me 'NetworkName\Username' and `strUserLabel.Text = Environment.UserName` returned just user name but it still was changing befor when I ran it as Admin — Mario LIPCIK, Jun 23 '14 at 12:22

score 11 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '16 at 14:16

11

In the MSDN documentation, I discovered they changed the definition of property Environment.UserName.

Before .NET 3

Gets the user name of the person who started the current thread.

Starting from version 3

Gets the user name of the person who is currently logged on to the Windows operating system

edited May 23 '16 at 14:16

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jun 23 '14 at 11:33

dovid

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i think @Mario LIPCIK should store his `user` to a `string` before `run as admin` for his application so that he can get the actual user from the stored variable – Vivek S. Jun 23 '14 at 11:39
4

@hector - you can't do that. If you right click and run as admin then the whole process is elevated from the start and is running under a different user – Matt Wilko Jun 23 '14 at 11:43
@hector yes my aplication works like that now, but I have several scripts in it which requre admin rights... so when I run my script wil will ask me for every single script to enter password. That is the reason I need my application to run as admin but get corent logged on user – Mario LIPCIK Jun 23 '14 at 13:23

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 01 '19 at 17:20

I think the accepted answer above is a VERY resource intensive way to find a username. It has nested loops with hundreds of items. In my 8GP RAM PC this takes 2+ seconds!

How about:

Username: SystemInformation.Username, and
DomainName: Environment.UserDomainName

Tested in VS2017

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '16 at 15:07

I have figured it out. I used this function which will determine which process which the user is using. In my code I defined that look for username of the explorer.exe process.

Function GetUserName() As String

    Dim selectQuery As Management.SelectQuery = New Management.SelectQuery("Win32_Process")
    Dim searcher As Management.ManagementObjectSearcher = New Management.ManagementObjectSearcher(selectQuery)
    Dim y As System.Management.ManagementObjectCollection
    y = searcher.Get

    For Each proc As Management.ManagementObject In y
        Dim s(1) As String
        proc.InvokeMethod("GetOwner", CType(s, Object()))
        Dim n As String = proc("Name").ToString()
        If n = "explorer.exe" Then
            Return s(0)
        End If
    Next
End Function

Index of 0 will return username

Index of 1 will return domain name of user

What is the minimum version of .NET Framework required for this? — Peter Mortensen, May 23 '16 at 14:23

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 19 '19 at 12:50

0

SystemInformation.Username doesn't work for certain applications. In my case, code is being run as System but explorer.exe is being run as Daniel. SystemInformation.Username reports System.

edited Mar 19 '19 at 12:50

double-beep

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answered Mar 18 '19 at 19:41

Dan

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kindly consider adding more information in your asnawer – Inder Mar 18 '19 at 20:02

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 03 '23 at 20:31

0

if using Identity Dim UserEmail As String = Context.User.Identity.Name.ToString

answered Feb 03 '23 at 20:31

Hamada

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered May 18 '23 at 11:40

0

Make sure you Imports System then you can use Environment.UserName

answered May 18 '23 at 11:40

PDUB

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Finding user name of current logged in user using VB.NET

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