How do I connect my VB project to active directory?

Question

0.00/5 (No votes)

See more:

I am currently creating a VB project for the IT department to use, so that if someone enters a PC or Laptop asset number, this will query Active Directory and report back with the current logged on user / OS installed / and Active Directory OU that the object sits in.

What I have tried:

At present I have only drawn up the GUI side of things and written some of the basic code featuing a check box which needs to be ticked to enable a couple of buttons to work featuring a force restart / shut down of the asset. It's been many many (at least 10) years since I played with VB so it's feeling in areas new again for me.

Posted 7-Apr-16 5:12am

James Hollingsworth

Updated 11-Apr-16 2:27am

Add a Solution

1 solution

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Richard Deeming · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-07T09:20:00

Solution 1

Assuming you mean VB.NET, you can use the System.DirectoryServices[^] assembly / namespace to query and update Active Directory.

There are lots of examples on this site; for example: Querying Active Directory using .NET classes and LDAP queries[^]

If you meant VB6 or earlier, you'd need to use ADSI: Accessing Active Directory Using Visual Basic (Windows)[^]

NB: You'll struggle to find support for VB6, since it's been dead for over 10 years.

Posted 7-Apr-16 9:20am

Richard Deeming

Comments

James Hollingsworth 7-Apr-16 17:03pm

Thanks, i'll give this a try tomorrow and yes vb.net, apologies for not stating that on the original posted question... I originally learnt with vb6 as now that im coming back in to trying vb and it's called vb.net made me think everything has changed, which i'm sure it has in many ways which i'll find out if i can keep entertained within this area.

James Hollingsworth 8-Apr-16 10:58am

Have I started the project badly... so i'm using Visual Studio 2015 Community, and I started the project as New --> Project --> Visual Basic --> Windows Forms Application.... Do I need it to be a different kind of application for this to work with Active Directory as I just don't seem to have the data connection available for system directory services.

Richard Deeming 8-Apr-16 11:01am

Add a reference to the assembly:
Open "Solution Explorer";
Double-click the project to open the project designer;
Click the "References" tab;
Click the "Add" button;
Select "System.DirectoryServices" from the list, and add the reference;

Import the namespace:
At the top of your code file, add:
Imports System.DirectoryServices

You should then be able to use the Directory Services classes.

James Hollingsworth 11-Apr-16 8:27am

Thanks for the help, I think i've managed to lose some of the files as now the application won't open up in Visual Studio... i'll start from scratch tonight and include the detail that you provided. Thank you