How do I detect if my program runs in an Active Directory environment?

Question

How do I detect if my program runs in an Active Directory environment?

I\'m using C# and .Net 2.0

Answer 1

From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.directoryservices.directoryentry.path.aspx

To bind to the current domain using LDAP, use the path "LDAP://RootDSE", then get the default naming context and rebind the entry.

So without a domain the binding to "LDAP://RootDSE" should either fail or return nothing. I didn't try it for myself.

use System.DirectoryServices; // add reference to system.directoryservices.dll

...

DirectoryEntry ent = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://RootDSE");
String str = ent.Properties["defaultNamingContext"][0];
DirectoryEntry domain = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" + str);

This is definitely a cleaner way of checking for an Active Directory than relying on an environment variable (which the user could delete or add to spoof the program).