In Windows 8, how do you read and write (IE) website authentication data with C#?

Question

I am talking about the information visible if you open "Credential Manager" from the control panel or start menu. If you tell IE to save a password it's visible in there.

I already know about the wrapper for Advapi32.dll (http://www.nuget.org/packages/CredentialManagement/) that offers easy functionality of the functions:
CredReadW
CredWriteW
CredDeleteW
etc.

but at this point I am not even sure if those are the right functions to interact with website authentication data. I wasn't able to read existing or write new web authentication data with those functions (I don't even fully understand the credential types). Writing & reading CRED_TYPE_GENERIC credentials worked though.

How do I read and write website authentication data from C#?
I am ready to p/invoke if necessary.

Answer 1

As you are using Windows 8, the simplest way is to use the WinRT API. I think you are creating a desktop application (Console, WPF, WinForms), so you have to:

1. Add <TargetPlatformVersion>8.0</TargetPlatformVersion> to the csproj file.
   
   <Project ToolsVersion="12.0" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"> <PropertyGroup> <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration> <Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform> <ProjectGuid>{BEA97844-0370-40C1-A435-F95DC0DC0677}</ProjectGuid> <OutputType>Exe</OutputType> <AutoGenerateBindingRedirects>true</AutoGenerateBindingRedirects> <TargetPlatformVersion>8.0</TargetPlatformVersion>

2. Add a reference to Windows and System.Runtime (look at the link below)

3. Use the PasswordVault class

var vault = new Windows.Security.Credentials.PasswordVault(); var credentials = vault.RetrieveAll(); foreach (PasswordCredential credential in credentials) { Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", credential.Resource, credential.UserName); }

Source: http://blogs.softfluent.com/post/2014/03/27/Acceder-a-API-WinRT-depuis-une-application-Desktop.aspx (French)

To get Windows and Generic credential: Encrypting credentials in a WPF application