C# Get user picture (Avatar)

Question

I'm referring to C# - How to get current user picture but I never found a solution. (I'm working on Win7 OS)

For some users, the picture is located on

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp\UserName.bmp

(where UserName is user nickname) for others users this path throws FileNotFoundException but pictures exists.

Where I can find information about the path or real picture? There is a registry that contains this information?

Answer 1

This blog post shows how to set the user tile (picture). In a comment near the end (Michael Anthony, Apr 10, 22:45), the commenter describes how to get the picture. I've gathered the info into a C# snippet. Remember that this is based on an undocumented Windows Shell function.

    using System;
    using System.Text;
    using System.Drawing;

    [DllImport("shell32.dll", EntryPoint = "#261", 
               CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, PreserveSig = false)]
    public static extern void GetUserTilePath(
      string username, 
      UInt32 whatever, // 0x80000000
      StringBuilder picpath, int maxLength);

    public static string GetUserTilePath(string username)
    {   // username: use null for current user
        var sb = new StringBuilder(1000);
        GetUserTilePath(username, 0x80000000, sb, sb.Capacity);
        return sb.ToString();
    }

    public static Image GetUserTile(string username)
    {
        return Image.FromFile(GetUserTilePath(username));
    }

Note that this Shell function creates the file \Users\<USER>\AppData...\<USER>.bmp and returns its filename.

Also, I've tested it on Win7. I have no idea of its compatibility with former Windows versions.

Credits to Joco and Michael Anthony.