How to retrieve the username

[Pookiemeister]

I am still learning Access. I used to used a Excel as a database but I was told that Access is a database. So I designed a form, and on that form I have two textboxes 1st textbox is labeled LastModified and the second one is labeled ModifiedBy. When I login into my work computer, I have to enter my employeeID and password. So I know in Excel VBA in the Immediate window section, when I type in the following code

?application.username

and hit return, it actually displays my name (first and last). However, this code does not work in Access. So when I web searched this issue, it stated that I should use the following code to retrieve the username

Private Sub Form_BeforeUpdate(Cancel As Integer)
    If Me.Dirty Then
       Me.ModifiedByUser = Environ$("username")
    End If
End Sub

But this code only displays my employeeID, which is what I used to login with. How is it that Excel can pull the correct information and Access can't? Thank you.

 

[Candyman8019]

I'm pretty sure this has to do with the user name that is entered into the Office app, and not the workstation environment variable. Go into Access | Info and take a look at the user name there and compare it to the same screen in Excel. I'd bet that they are different. Looks like you're using Excel 2010 and 365...so in 365 it may be tied to your user ID...so make sure you're logged into the Access app the same way you would with Excel.

 

[TonyD1016]

While I am by no means an expert, I've recently worked on a system that needed to log the username and from what I have read the best way to do this is with a Windows API call. The Environ function can be spoofed easily.
I use the method found here: API: Get Login name
This retrieves the name the of the user that is currently logged into the machine and that value can be passed to other controls with the custom function =fosusername()

I hope this helps.

 

[Pookiemeister]

@Candyman8019 Thank you for the response. Both Excel and Access are within Microsoft 365. I followed the steps that you stated, in Access | File | Info. When I looked at the top right corner by a smiley face and frown, I see my username and not my EmployeeID. Thank you.

 

[Pookiemeister]

@TonyD1016 I clicked that link you sent and copied and pasted the code into my VBA editor and the following code is red:

Private Declare Function apiGetUserName Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias _
    "GetUserNameA" (ByVal lpBuffer As String, nSize As Long) As Long

I receive a compile error: The code in this project must be updated for use on 64-but systems. Please review and update Declare statements and then mark them with the PtrSafe attribute. How can I fix this issue. Thank you.

 

[Pookiemeister]

This the code that is associated with the textbox.

Private Sub Form_BeforeUpdate(Cancel As Integer)
    strUserName = fOSUserName
    Me.Modified_By.Text = fOSUserName
End Sub

 

[Micron]

There's a gazillion posts about ptrsafe in general and specifically this function. Google is my friend and he gave me this

Redirecting

You could run it just once and then assign the returned value to your own Environ variable.

 

[welshgasman]

? application.username does indeed get the name in Excel options on my laptop.
That property is not visible to Access.

I used to have a table that held company login ID (6 digits) and real names.