How do I get the currently-logged username from a Windows service in .NET?

c# visual-studio-2010 windows-services
Raj picture Raj · Mar 7, 2011 · Viewed 140.1k times · Source

I have a Windows service which need the currently logged username. I tried System.Environment.UserName, Windows identity and Windows form authentication, but all are returning "System" as the user as my service is running in system privileged. Is there a way to get the currently logged in username without changing my service account type?

Answer

Tapas picture Tapas · Aug 25, 2011

This is a WMI query to get the user name:

ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("SELECT UserName FROM Win32_ComputerSystem");
ManagementObjectCollection collection = searcher.Get();
string username = (string)collection.Cast<ManagementBaseObject>().First()["UserName"];

You will need to add System.Management under References manually.

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