Open Active Directory Users and Computers Property Sheet from a C# Application

Question

I would like to open the property sheets for users, groups etc of the 'Active Directory Users and Computers' console from a C# application.

Has anyone an idea how to do it?

I've found an example in the Windows Server 2003 Platform SDK. Unfortunately it's in C++, very long, very complex and doesn't work with 64bit operating systems.

But I think a solution could be a small library in C++ that only opens the property sheet and act as a wrapper for the C# application.

Kind regards from Hamburg, Marc

Regarding the example you found, would you be referring to the 'PropSheetHost' sample console project in C++ in the 'Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2'? — T-Heron
Did you ever figure this out? I'd love to be able to do this too. — Gabriel Luci
Yes, it's the 'PropSheetHost' Project. And unfortunately no solution until now. — MarcHH

marsh-wiggle marsh-wiggle · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-01T12:57:46

This Microsoft sample from GitHub works with 64bit systems. You pass an ADS path as parameter and it calls the property window.

PropSheetHost.exe "LDAP://CN=user,DC=MyDomain,DC=MyTldDomain"

It is important that it is case sensitive, so "ldap://.." doesn't work. The code is definitely not designed to get called multiple times before terminating, so it is probably the best way to use the exe without changes like that:

ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();        
startInfo.FileName = @"PropSheetHost.exe";
startInfo.Arguments = @"LDAP://CN=user,DC=MyDomain,DC=MyTldDomain";
Process.Start(startInfo);

For a direct call from C# some changes needs to be done (e.q. adding a missing class unregister). This works for me: How to open the "Active Directory Users and Computers" object properties dialog from c#?

Open Active Directory Users and Computers Property Sheet from a C# Application

1 Answers