When an application uses the Credentials Management application programming interface (API) to prompt for credentials, the user is expected to enter information that can be validated, either by the operating system or by the application. The user can specify domain credentials information in one of the following formats:
User Principal Name
User principal name (UPN) format is used to specify an Internet-style name, such as user_name@example.microsoft.com. The following table summarizes the parts of a UPN.
| Part | Example |
|---|
| User account name. Also called the logon name. | user_name |
| Separator. A character literal, the at sign (@). | @ |
| UPN suffix. Also called the domain name. | example.microsoft.com |
A UPN can be implicitly or explicitly defined. An implicit UPN is of the form user_name@DNS_domain_name.com. An implicit UPN is always associated with the user's account, even if an explicit UPN is not defined. An explicit UPN is of the form name@suffix, where both the name and suffix strings are explicitly defined by the administrator.
Down-Level Logon Name
The down-level logon name format is used to specify a domain and a user account in that domain, for example, DOMAIN\user_name. The following table summarizes the parts of a down-level logon name.
| Part | Example |
|---|
| NetBIOS domain name. | DOMAIN |
| Separator. A character literal, the backslash (\). | \ |
| User account name. Also called the logon name. | UserName |
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Build date: 10/15/2009