Comments on: User Initials in Excel

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Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:13:00 +0000

[...] could be to automatically load user’s name based on windows login ID. For more on this, see this article on [...]

By: Simon Herbert

Simon Herbert — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:11:00 +0000

Hans - no problem...

Trying to post my code again:

Dim objword As Object
Set objword = CreateObject("Word.Application")
MsgBox "Name: " & objword.UserName
MsgBox "Initials: " & objword.UserInitials
objword.Quit

(Dick, could you check if my previous posts are in your spam bin? Thanks!)

By: Hans Schraven

Hans Schraven — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:18:00 +0000

@Simon, sorry to 'overwrite' you.
The nice thing about Word is that does your work: for instance

Dim c0 As String
With CreateObject("Word.Application")
.username="Simon Herbert"
c0 = UCase(.userinitials)
.Quit
End With

By: Simon Herbert

Simon Herbert — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:17:00 +0000

Hans, I posted codes similar to that last week but my comments are not shown (probably in the spam folder due to including a link for further details)...

Word and Visio seem to be the only 2003 apps that have complete access to (application) User Name and Initials.

By: Hans Schraven

Hans Schraven — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:07:00 +0000

Word can't do without userinitials.
When my username in Word is Hans Schraven it automatically creates my initials: HS.
If I empty my username (options), Word automatically takes the computername as username and creates the initials accordingly.
To retrieve the userinitals in Excel:

Dim c0 As String
With CreateObject("Word.Application")
c0 = UCase(.userinitials)
.Quit
End With

By: fzz

fzz — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:33:00 +0000

Security. It'd be nice if Windows could provide it.

Unless organizations' IT departments are sophisticated enough to use alternative credentials for logon scripts when users log on, or just don't use logon scripts, there's some scripting engine somewhere on users' systems which users can run. Maybe in a fully locked down environment users can only run .EXEs under Program Files and a few .EXEs under Windows or WinNT. In such circumstances, API calls may be all there is, but that begs the question whether greater security is achieved forcing users to make API calls rather than providing an easier to use scripting facility like WSH.

This also raises the question whether, from a security perspective, it's a good thing VBA can make API calls. And if Microsoft adds a security feature to disable API calls in some future VBA version or successor scripting facility, then what?

By: John Walkenbach

John Walkenbach — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:59:00 +0000

I did not know about that method to read the registry. Much simpler than API calls.

Isn't it true that Windows Scripting Host is often disabled for security reasons?

By: Mike Alexander

Mike Alexander — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:16:00 +0000

So many ways to get the logged user name. For years, I've used API calls to do this. Dermot and Fzz both demonstrate ways that are much simpler than my old way of doing this.

Any thoughts on which method may be the most efficient/effective?

By: Mike Alexander

Mike Alexander — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:58:00 +0000

Not too happy about the way the code shows here. Hopefully this is cleaner>

Function GetLoggedUser()

Dim myWS As Object
Dim strUser As String

Set myWS = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

strUser = myWS.RegRead _
("HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerLogon User Name")

MsgBox strUser

End Function

By: Mike Alexander

Mike Alexander — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:54:00 +0000

Thanks for the registry tip Fzz:
This is much better easier that the Windows API route.

Function GetLoggedUser()

Dim myWS As Object
Dim strUser As String

Set myWS = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

strUser = myWS.RegRead _
("HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindows" & _
"CurrentVersionExplorerLogon User Name")

End Function