How to change the password of a local computer user remotely

Ever wanted to change the password of the local administrator account (or any local user account for that matter) in .net? Here's how: Code is in white on blue!

Make sure you import
System.DirectoryServices

Imports System.DirectoryServices

First things first we need to check to see if the computer is turned on, lets try a quick ping

Dim pinger As New Net.NetworkInformation.Ping

Try

Dim result = pinger.Send(MachineName)

If result.Status <> Net.NetworkInformation.IPStatus.Success Then

'unable to connect

Return False

End If

Catch ex As Exception

'unable to connect

Return False

End Try

Nothing complicated about that and you could enhance it to provide some feedback

Now to connect to the machine for this use
DirectoryEntry, its got quite a few parameters/overloads but for this we're only interested in:

Address of the computer we're trying to connect to
Username of the account we're going to be using to change the password -must have the ability to change a local user password so if you use a AD account make sure its part of the admin group on the target machine
Password of the above account
Authentication -the machine won't let you change the password if its not a secure connection!

All together looks like:

Dim de As New DirectoryEntry(String.Format("WinNT://{0}", MachineName), "mydomain\accountname", " accountpassword", AuthenticationTypes.Secure)

quick check to see if its worked

If de Is Nothing Then

'couldn't connect

Return False

End If

Now, technically you should be able to give it the path WinNT://machinename/Nameoftheaccount but i couldn't get this to work, just throws 80005000 errors so....

Query the directory entry to find the account we're looking for, in this case: Administrator

Dim admin = de.Children.Find("Administrator")

If admin Is Nothing Then

'couldn't connect or find account

Return False

End If

Finally to change the password: Bear in mind that the password must conform to any complexity requirements you have setup!

Try

admin.Invoke("SetPassword", "New password")

admin.CommitChanges()

'Done!

Catch ex As Exception

Return False

End Try

The code in full as a function:

Public Function ChangeLocalUserPassword(ByVal MachineName As String, ByVal LocalUser As String, ByVal Pass As String) As Boolean

Dim pinger As New Net.NetworkInformation.Ping

Try

Dim result = pinger.Send(MachineName)

If result.Status <> Net.NetworkInformation.IPStatus.Success Then

'unable to connect

Return False

End If

Catch ex As Exception

Return False

End Try

Dim de As New DirectoryEntry(String.Format("WinNT://{0}", MachineName), "mydomain\accountname", " accountpassword", AuthenticationTypes.Secure)

If de Is Nothing Then

'couldn't connect or find account

Return False

End If

Dim admin = de.Children.Find(LocalUser)

If admin Is Nothing Then

'couldn't connect or find account

Return False

End If

Try

admin.Invoke("SetPassword", Pass)

admin.CommitChanges()

'Done!

Catch ex As Exception

Return False

End Try

End Function