This project looks to open the oportunity to easily create Windows credential providers for Windows 7, 8 and 10 using managed .NET. Credential providers are COM based, with the interfaces needed for Windows credential providers being written in C++. In .NET, it is possible to do COM interopability and platform invocation, making it possible to make a Windows credential provider in .NET.
Nonetheless, even when using COM interopability and platform invocation, the .NET equivalent interfaces created aren't very friendly for a managed language. This project builds on this by creating an object-oriented and functional API.
This library fully supports the ICredentialProvider interface as part of the Win32 API from the Microsoft documentation, including:
- Supports all usage scenarios of credential providers, including logon, change password, credentials UI dialog and pre-logon access.
- All controls are available including textboxes, checkboxes and links, with the ability to manipulate the data within these controls accordingly.
- Credential providers enumerating single tiles and multiple credential tiles, with different data in each credential tile.
- Extended credential tiles which have different behaviour in Windows 8 and 10 than in Windows 7.
- Connectable credential providers, used for any credential provider that wants to connect to a network, with additional UI processing.
- Fully supports wrapping existing credential providers, including built-in Windows credential providers.
Getting started with this library is easy - simply install the package from the NuGet package manager.
This library can be installed either by compiling the source yourself or by installing the NuGet package:
Install-Package Windows-Credential-Provider
The following screenshots are examples of credential providers included within this project, used in a variety of different scenarios.
This screenshot wraps the existing Windows password credential provider, and adds a link labelled 'Reset Password', enabling the user to reset their password. Note: this functionality is not included.
Versions 1.x are issued under the MIT license. There are no restrictions on the use of the software, except that the MIT license must be attributed to any open-source or commercial redistributions of the software. The MIT license was chosen for this software to protect commercial interests in the use of the software, whilst at the same time, enabling the software to be used freely in open-source projects.