Why don't you try :

Session("LOGON_USER") instead

to retreive the user  name.

u may use :

User.Identity.Name

But what if I don't want to store session information?

Use the code  you pasted as that is the correct way for an ASP.NET application.

Locate your Virtual Directory for that application  and remove anonymous perm for IIS to be able to authenticate the user  and return a correct value.

To store the information you would have to choose a storage type , Database (ms Access or SQL) and then create tables and columns to store the info there.

Session("LOGON_USER") is the Windows Session. It is there anyway, so why not use it?

Well I tried that but it also returns me an empty  string.

Did you have set the windows  authentification on the IIS server before or is it anonymous logon where everybody can open your application  ?

If it is not set you're always gonna get an empty  string for the user.

I have been able to work out with the System.Web.HttpContext object. Thanks a lot Monique and Carlos for the support as I am new to .NET and web  technologies. Have been a pure VC++ Win 32 programmer but with changing times....:)

Ok can you explain what you have set in your Virtual directory settings?

Exactly as u had said. I checked permissions and set it to Windows authentication  mode.

Now what gves you the empty  string the LOGON_USER or the page.windows.identiy.name?

You are absolutely right. The LOGON_USER still returns me an empty  string. Perhaps its more important to know the right way of doing things  than just getting things to work. I can post the code  if anybody want and it still returns an empty string  but identity.name doesn't. Thanks again!!!

Never a problem post the code  and I ll get it to work for you so you have two options