I know that sounds crazy, but I'd like to know if there is a way to validate a user without actually logging them in.  Basically just want to make sure that a username/password combo actually points to a valid user.  I've been using the following code, but just wanted to make sure it is "correct" and not going to foul anything up before I go and actually put this into production use:

DotNetNuke.Security.Membership.UserLoginStatus logStat = DotNetNuke.Security.Membership.UserLoginStatus.LOGIN_FAILURE;
info = DotNetNuke.Security.Membership.MembershipProvider.Instance().UserLogin(this.PortalId, textUserName.Text, textPassword.Text, string.Empty, ref logStat);

What I expect to see from this when it is valid is logStat would equal LOGIN_SUCCESS if it can be logged into at this moment. If they are currently locked out, it would return that in the enum values, as well as other options under different circumstances (superuser, not approved, etc).  Frankly, I just want to know if that is a valid account that can be logged into at that instant in time.

Michael, thank you.  Looking through your code looks like I can use "DotNetNuke.Entities.Users.UserController.ValidateUser(…)" to accomplish that task... funny I didn't see that when looking through the API before.

Thanks again