Platform SDK: Network Management

NetUserDel

The NetUserDel function deletes a user account from a server.

Security Requirements

Windows NT: Only members of the Administrators or the Account Operators local group can successfully execute NetUserDel on a remote server or on a computer that has local security enabled. Only members of the Administrators local group can delete an Administrators privilege account.

Windows 2000: If you call this function on a Windows 2000 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 Administrators and account operators to call this function. On a member server or workstation, only Administrators and account operators can call this function. For more information, see Security Requirements for the Network Management Functions.

NET_API_STATUS NetUserDel(
  LPCWSTR servername,  
  LPCWSTR username     
);

Parameters

servername: [in] Pointer to a constant Unicode string specifying the name of the remote server on which the function is to execute. The string must begin with \\. If this parameter is NULL, the local computer is used.
username: [in] Pointer to a constant Unicode string specifying the name of the user account to delete.

Return Values

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.

Value	Meaning
ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED	The user does not have access to the requested information.
NERR_InvalidComputer	The computer name is invalid.
NERR_NotPrimary	The operation is allowed only on the primary domain controller of the domain.
NERR_UserNotFound	The user name could not be found.

Remarks

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.

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

#ifndef UNICODE
#define UNICODE
#endif

#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;
}

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.

Requirements