Add a Local NT Group Using Win32 API

Category:

System/API

Type:

Snippets

Difficulty:

Intermediate

Author:

Anonymous

Version Compatibility: Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic 5

More information:

See comments for detailed description.

Instructions: Copy the declarations and code below and paste directly into your VB project.

Declarations:
Private Declare Function NetLocalGroupAdd _ Lib "netapi32.dll" _ (ServerName As Byte, _ ByVal Level As Long, _ Buffer As Group_Info_1, _ parm_err As Long) As Long Private Type Group_Info_1 lgrpi1_name As String lgrpi1_comment As String End Type

Code:

Option Explicit

'Example Code for utilizing the Win32 API call that
'  creates local groups programatically by Mike Borkin.
'  This code can be used freely by anyone who wishes.
'  The code has been tested with VB 5 and 6, and is
'  functional for NT 4.0 workstation and server machines
'  (with the proper .dll) as well as Windows 2000
'  professional and server.

'The following code will create a local group called
'  "group" with the word "comment" as the group comment
'  (when viewed through User Manager or Computer
'  Management tools) on an NT/2000 machine named
'  "ServerName".  This has been hard coded into the code
'  rather than utilizing a variable, and there is no
'  error checking, in order to keep the code example
'  as clear as possible.  The author does not recommend
'  utilizing the function in this way.

'The ANSI to Unicode conversion is necessary because VB
'  5 & 6 output in ANSI for legacy reasons, however
'  NT/2000 requires Unicode input.  NT/2000 also requires
'  the name of the machine that the local group is
'  created on be a null-terminated string.

'This function has not been tested by the author on
'  Windows XP or with VB.Net, however, it should work in
'  conjunction with both.  To test the code, create a
'  simple form with single command button then cut and
'  paste the code.  Change "\\ServerName" to the name of
'  the NT/2000 machine you are testing on or else it will
'  seem to hang as it tries to resolve the machine name.
'

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Dim lRetVal As Long         'result of the API functions
    Dim hKey As Long            'handle of opened key
    Dim vValue As Variant       'setting of queried value
    Dim Name As Group_Info_1    'setting of local group name
                                '  and comment
    Dim bServer() As Byte       'null terminated string
                                '  containing server name
    
    Dim sNameLen As String      'setting of variables for length
    Dim sCommentLen As String   '  of local group name and
                                '  comment for ANSI to Unicode
                                '  conversion
    
    ' ---------------------------------------------
    ' Conversion of 1 bit ansi VB output to the 2 bit
    ' unicode required by NT/W2K
    ' ---------------------------------------------

sNameLen = Len("Group")
    sCommentLen = Len("Comment")

Do While Not sNameLen = 0
        
        Name.lgrpi1_name = Mid("Group", sNameLen, 1) & _
            vbNullChar & Name.lgrpi1_name
        
        sNameLen = sNameLen - 1
    Loop
        
    Do While Not sCommentLen = 0
        
        Name.lgrpi1_comment = Mid("Comment", sCommentLen, 1) & _
            vbNullChar & Name.lgrpi1_comment
        
        sCommentLen = sCommentLen - 1
    Loop
           
    bServer = "\\ServerName" & vbNullChar   'null terminated
                                            'string

' ---------------------------------------------
    ' Local Group Creation
    ' ---------------------------------------------
    
    lRetVal = NetLocalGroupAdd(bServer(0), 1, Name, 0)

msgBox "Function Complete"
    
End Sub