Retrieving personal details from Active Directory

If you are programming in C#, you can access information held on Active Directory easily using the code below.

Below uses the libraries provided in DirectoryServices namespace to query the Active Directory such as a user's telephone number, email address, etc.  As you can see, it is very straight forward (at least compared with tutorials I have seen using LDAP)

<% System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry directoryEntry
= principal.GetUnderlyingObject() as
System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry; %>


<%: principal.DisplayName %>

Tel: <%: directoryEntry.Properties["telephoneNumber"].Value%>

Email: <%: directoryEntry.Properties["mail"].Value%>

Although it looks like classes in DirectoryServices are wrappers to equivalent LDAP calls, it is certainly a lot cleaner and easier to understand (in my opinions)

The full list of properties you can retrieve can be found on

http://www.dotnetactivedirectory.com/Understanding_LDAP_Active_Directory_User_Object_Properties.html

Security Groups and Policies for a Windows User

In Windows environment, resources authorizations are usually done by checking a users security policy.  When you are writing a program, you often need to find out your own security group/ policy, so you can test your program with your own credentials.   However, it isn't always convenient to bother the system administrators to get details of your settings.

In a situation like this, you may want to try the tool gpresult

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/gpresult.mspx?mfr=true

With it, you can see settings about yourself.