IADsUser interface (iads.h)

The IADsUser interface is a dual interface that inherits from IADs. It is designed to represent and manage an end-user account on a network. Call the methods of this interface to access and manipulate end-user account data. Such data includes names of the user, telephone numbers, job title, and so on. This interface supports features for determining the group association of the user, and for setting or changing the password.

To bind to a domain user through a WinNT provider, use the domain name as part of the ADsPath, as shown in the following code example.

GetObject("WinNT://MYDOMAIN/jeffsmith,user")

Similarly, use the computer name as part of the ADsPath to bind to a local user.

GetObject("WinNT://MYCOMPUTER/jeffsmith,user")

In Active Directory, domain users reside in the directory. The following code example shows how to bind to a domain user through an LDAP provider.

GetObject("LDAP://CN=Jeff Smith,OU=Sales,DC=Fabrikam,DC=Com")

However, local accounts reside in the local SAM database and the LDAP provider does not communicate with the local database. Thus, to bind to a local user, you must go through a WinNT provider as described in the second code example.

Inheritance

The IADsUser interface inherits from IDispatch and IADs. IADsUser also has these types of members:

Methods

The IADsUser interface has these methods.

IADsUser::ChangePassword Changes the user password from the specified old value to a new value.
IADsUser::Groups Obtains a collection of the ADSI group objects to which this user belongs.
IADsUser::SetPassword Sets the user password to a specified value.

Remarks

As with any other ADSI object, the container object creates a Windows user account object. First, bind to a container object. Then, call the IADsContainer::Create method and specify mandatory or optional attributes.

With WinNT, you do not have to specify any additional attributes when creating a user. You may call the IADsContainer::Create method to create the user object directly.

Dim dom As IADsContainer
Dim usr As IADsUser

On Error GoTo Cleanup

Set dom = GetObject("WinNT://MyDomain")
Set usr = dom.Create("user","jeffsmith")
usr.SetInfo

Cleanup:
    If(Err.Number<>0) Then
        MsgBox("An error has occurred. " & Err.Number)
    End If
    Set mach = Nothing
    Set usr = Nothing

In this case, a domain user is created with the following default values.

Property	Value
Full Name	SAM Account Name (such as jeffsmith)
Password	Empty
User Must Change Password	TRUE
User Cannot Change Password	FALSE
Password Never Expires	FALSE
Account Disabled	FALSE
Group	Domain User
Profile	Empty
Account Never Expires	TRUE

 

To create a local user, bind to a target computer, as shown in the following code example.

Dim mach As IADsContainer
Dim usr as IADsUser

On Error GoTo Cleanup
Set mach = GetObject("WinNT://MyMachine,Computer")
Set usr = mach.Create("user","jeffsmith")
usr.SetInfo

Cleanup:
    If(Err.Number<>0) Then
        MsgBox("An error has occurred. " & Err.Number)
    End If
    Set mach = Nothing
    Set usr = Nothing

The newly created local user will have the same default properties as the domain user. The group membership, however, will be "users", instead of "domain user".

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows Vista
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2008
Target Platform	Windows
Header	iads.h

See also

IADs

IADsContainer::Create

IADsUser Property Methods

IDispatch