Check username and password of Windows account

Question

I have an installation package that installs a service process that I create. I'd like to prompt the user for the username/password of the account that the service process should run under. I'd like to verify the the username/password combination are valid before continuing with the installation. I have a C DLL that I am using for special installation behavior, but I can't figure out how to use the Windows API to verify an account's credentials. I'd like to be able to support the same account name syntax used by the service control manager.

Answer 1

The function you want to use is LogonUser. You can even be extra-cool and specify the LOGON32_LOGON_SERVICE flag which checks to make sure the user has the appropriate permissions to run a service.

Answer 2

LogonUser is the canonical way to do this, though Microsoft somewhat discourages it.