title: How can you find a user in active directory from C#?
body: <p>I'm trying to figure out how to search AD from C# similarly to how "Find Users, Contacts, and Groups" works in the Active Directory Users and Computers tool. I have a string that either contains a group name, or a user's name (usually in the format firstname middleinitial [if they have one] lastname, but not always). Even if I do a seperate query for groups vs. users, I can't come up with a way to search that captures most user accounts. The Find Users, Contacts, and Groups tool brings them back almost every time. Anyone have any suggestions?</p>
  
  <p>I already know how to use the DirectorySearcher class, the issue is that I can't find a query that does what I'd like. Neither cn nor samaccount name has anything to do with the user's name in this, so I'm unable to search on those. Splitting things up and searching on sn and givenName doesn't catch anywhere near as much as that tool does.</p>