NetUserDel function (lmaccess.h)

The NetUserDel function deletes a user account from a server.

Syntax

NET_API_STATUS NET_API_FUNCTION NetUserDel(
  [in] LPCWSTR servername,
  [in] LPCWSTR username
);

Parameters

[in] servername

Pointer to a constant string that specifies the DNS or NetBIOS name of the remote server on which the function is to execute. If this parameter is NULL, the local computer is used.

[in] username

Pointer to a constant string that specifies the name of the user account to delete. For more information, see the following Remarks section.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is NERR_Success.

If the function fails, the return value can be one of the following error codes.

Remarks

If you are programming for Active Directory, you may be able to call certain Active Directory Service Interface (ADSI) methods to achieve the same functionality you can achieve by calling the network management user functions. For more information, see IADsUser and IADsComputer.

If you call this function on a domain controller that is running Active Directory, access is allowed or denied based on the access control list (ACL) for the securable object. The default ACL permits only Domain Admins and Account Operators to call this function. On a member server or workstation, only Administrators and Power Users can call this function. For more information, see Security Requirements for the Network Management Functions. For more information on ACLs, ACEs, and access tokens, see Access Control Model.

The security descriptor of the User object is used to perform the access check for this function.

An account cannot be deleted while a user or application is accessing a server resource. If the user was added to the system with a call to the NetUserAdd function, deleting the user also deletes the user's system account.

User account names are limited to 20 characters and group names are limited to 256 characters. In addition, account names cannot be terminated by a period and they cannot include commas or any of the following printable characters: ", /, , [, ], :, |, <, >, +, =, ;, ?, *. Names also cannot include characters in the range 1-31, which are nonprintable.

Examples

The following code sample demonstrates how to delete a user account with a call to the NetUserDel function.

#ifndef UNICODE
#define UNICODE
#endif
#pragma comment(lib, "netapi32.lib")

#include <stdio.h>
#include <windows.h> 
#include <lm.h>

int wmain(int argc, wchar_t *argv[])
{
   DWORD dwError = 0;
   NET_API_STATUS nStatus;
   //
   // All parameters are required.
   //
   if (argc != 3)
   {
      fwprintf(stderr, L"Usage: %s \\\\ServerName UserName\n", argv[0]);
      exit(1);
   }
   //
   // Call the NetUserDel function to delete the share.
   //
   nStatus = NetUserDel(argv[1], argv[2]);
   //
   // Display the result of the call.
   //
   if (nStatus == NERR_Success)
      fwprintf(stderr, L"User %s has been successfully deleted on %s\n",
               argv[2], argv[1]);
   else
      fprintf(stderr, "A system error has occurred: %d\n", nStatus);

   return 0;
}

Requirements

See also

NetUserAdd

NetUserEnum

NetUserSetInfo

Network Management Functions

Network Management Overview

User Functions