Enumerating windows from an NT service

  • Thread starter Thread starter José Achig
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J

José Achig

Hi all,

The service I have written can not enumerate the current user's desktop
windows when running as a service.

I read where one solution to this is to install the service with
"SystemAccount" rights and "Allow service to interact with desktop" but I
know it leaves the system vulnerable to maliciousness.

Is there a way to programmatically enumerate through the current desktop
windows when running as a service?

Also, How I can know the name of the user when he logged?

Thanks in advance
 
José Achig said:
The service I have written can not enumerate the current user's desktop
windows when running as a service.
Click to expand...

In general services run on an invisible, non-interactive desktop which is
different from the one with which you (and your user) are familiar.
I read where one solution to this is to install the service with
"SystemAccount" rights and "Allow service to interact with desktop" but I
know it leaves the system vulnerable to maliciousness.
Click to expand...

Right. That's a bad idea.
Is there a way to programmatically enumerate through the current desktop
windows when running as a service?
Click to expand...

Take a look here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dllproc/bas
e/interacting_with_the_user_in_a_service.asp
Also, How I can know the name of the user when he logged?
Click to expand...

GetUserName() returns the name of the security principal associated with the
current thread. In an application, that's what you want. In a service, it
usually is not. Often services that need to know who their clients are use
an "impersonable" IPC mechanism (named pipes, RPC, etc) and "impersonation"
so that the server service can "assume the identity" of the client
application. You can start reading about that here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/security/se
curity/client_impersonation.asp

For more details, I recommend Jeffrey Richter's book "Programming Server
Side Applications For Microsoft Windows 2000".

Regards,
Will
 
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