How to detect if a user's password has expired

Question

We have a C# web application that communicates to a business server via .net remoting (actually using Genuine Channels).

The connection to the business server is authenticated using NTLM. Our users typically set up a user account on their domain (let's call is USERX) and use those credentials to connect to the business server.

The web app connects at start-up and keeps a connection open. It creates a new NetworkCredential using USERX's details and sets that on the channel.

Our customers are unhappy that when the user's password expires they get a general "something has gone wrong" error. They want a more specific error telling them that they should change the USERX password.

I know nothing about NTLM!

Is it even possible to detect the authentication failure reason so that we can give a more meaningful error back to the users?

Any help / pointers /links greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

This might help: Password expiration email utility