Is motherboard serial number universally unique?

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Hi all,

I want to identify some client machines' configuration. I already have Vb.NET code to identify the motherboard serial number. My question is whether motherboard serial number unique or same models of motherboard have same serial number?

Nejimon CR

Posted 30-Jan-11 5:39am

Nejimon CR

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Answer 1 · 2011-01-30T06:40:00

This is a popular question, see:

http://en.lmgtfy.com/?q=is+motherboard+serial+number+unqiue[^]

gave me over million answers; I did not see a definitive answer so far and I don't want to examine them all :-), but there are indirect signs showing that nothing is designed to guarantee world-wide uniqueness. In sign is the information, that a format of unique id is different for different manufacturers. If there was a global organization regulating so many motherboard manufacturers, the IDs would take a uniform format. Another reason for not having such a global system is this: who is interested of such global uniqueness? Hassles and costs for manufacturers are obvious, but what would be the benefits? So, I don't believe you can rely on that.

Other identifications include MAC address and CPU id.

Let me tell you: if you're developing a licensing schema that requires your installed software to be operational only on a single uniquely identified computer which would loose the rights to use your software on hardware upgrade, this would be not fair to your customers, in my opinion.

—SA

Kschuler · Answer 2 · 2011-02-01T10:13:00

Solution 2

I had trouble once[^] with not being able to pull the motherboard serial number off certain brands of laptops. I ended up using a combination of numbers much like the author of this article[^] did. Hope this helps.

Posted 1-Feb-11 10:13am

Kschuler