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Searching for a Reliable Hardware ID

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26 Mar 2020CPOL3 min read 283K   17.7K   212   143
How a computer can be identified in order to generate a unique ID
Many desktop application developers need to uniquely identify the computer on which their software is running. This article will show you how it can be done.

Introduction

Many desktop application developers need to uniquely identify the computer on which their software is running. Such identification must produce a unique data element which will be different per each computer and will reproduce the same ID on any given computer.  Note: there is also an excellent article focusing on the BIOS UUID. The article was written by .

The WMI Set of Classes 

Windows provides a set of classes that can be used for most hardware enumeration and identification tasks, which is named WMI or Windows Management Instrumentation. These are extensions to the Windows Driver Model (WDM).

WMI provides per instrumented component static information and dynamic notification about any changes. Most programming languages can be used to manage, locally and remotely, computers and servers, enumerating their instrumented components and alerted for changes that occur.

During my research, I came to the conclusion that if speed and reliability is important, it is better to access hardware via the Win32 API and not use WMI. I have experienced many delays and in some occasions, WMI failed to detect an element such as the CPU ID.

This article focuses on the direct approach for obtaining this data without using WMI.

Obtaining a Unique CPU ID

The solution that seems to be the best choice is to sample the CPU unique identification number (or CPU ID). However, there are several problems that makes it impossible to rely on reading the CPU ID.

To begin with, most CPUs with the exception of the old Pentium III, don't have a unique CPU Serial Number. Intel has removed this feature for privacy reasons.

It is still possible to generate a unique ID from the motherboard as a whole. That certainly works but the huge number of different types of motherboards and manufacturers makes it next to impossible to generate a unique ID that will cover all of them.

In fact, a French company named CPU ID, focuses in this field and spends a lot of resources in getting to learn each type of motherboard and CPU, in order to cover them all.

The following screenshot shows the details that can be collected for each machine.

Image 1

Their SDK can be downloaded here, and can be used both as a static library (per special request) or a DLL with any application developed. The bad news is that even the guys from CPUID say it is impossible to generate a unique hardware ID based on the CPU or the motherboard of a given machine.

MAC Address Based Hardware ID

The next choice for obtaining such a unique ID would be sampling the MAC address. To begin with, what is the "MAC address"? It stands for Media Access Control. The MAC address is 48 bits long (6 bytes). The GetMACAddress code sample explains how to obtain the MAC address.

However, there is one problem with this approach: the MAC address can be easily changed into a new one...

Hard Drive Serial Number

It seems that the only reliable solution for obtaining a machine ID would be using the serial number of the main Hard Drive. The second example, GetHDSerialNumber, shows how to obtain this ID. From my experience, this approach is the best one and the most reliable for generating a unique machine based hardware ID.

I would like to add that the serial number to be used, must be the one set by the manufacturer as opposed to the one set (and which can be changed) by the Operating System.

History

  • 28th January, 2015: Initial version

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
CEO Secured Globe, Inc.
United States United States
Michael Haephrati is a music composer, an inventor and an expert specializes in software development and information security, who has built a unique perspective which combines technology and the end user experience. He is the author of a the book Learning C++ , which teaches C++ 20, and was published in August 2022.

He is the CEO of Secured Globe, Inc., and also active at Stack Overflow.

Read our Corporate blog or read my Personal blog.





Comments and Discussions

 
BugDeviceIoControl Bug Pin
Christoph Derigo19-May-15 8:02
Christoph Derigo19-May-15 8:02 
Questionadditional thoughts Pin
Gernot Frisch2-Feb-15 5:32
Gernot Frisch2-Feb-15 5:32 
AnswerRe: additional thoughts Pin
Michael Haephrati3-Feb-15 10:37
professionalMichael Haephrati3-Feb-15 10:37 
QuestionUnique Machine ID pretty much impossible Pin
Mike Nordell1-Feb-15 12:05
Mike Nordell1-Feb-15 12:05 
AnswerRe: Unique Machine ID pretty much impossible Pin
Michael Haephrati3-Feb-15 10:38
professionalMichael Haephrati3-Feb-15 10:38 
GeneralRe: Unique Machine ID pretty much impossible Pin
Mike Nordell7-Feb-15 15:11
Mike Nordell7-Feb-15 15:11 
QuestionWMI? Pin
dandy7228-Jan-15 12:14
dandy7228-Jan-15 12:14 
SuggestionIt's risky to be depend on only one id Pin
Cracked-Down28-Jan-15 7:12
Cracked-Down28-Jan-15 7:12 
Mike, Very nice compiled article.

I have few suggestion though, I will first go through the problems that you might face & then with its best possible solution

1. CPU ID (If used alone)
Problem: CPU h/w changed - Though, will happen rarely, but will mess-up the chances of getting unique id

2. Mother board ID
Problem : H/w Change & complexity involved - Difficult to locate reliable unique ID from no. of chips available on mother board. If you could spend that much of time and would able to retrieve it, then it could be reliable. But I never tried doing that as chances of success are very low

3. Hard drive ID - Very reliable but can't be accessed by every windows user profile
Problem : User authentication/profile - For few of the Operating systems, users with non-admin rights can't retrieve the Hard drive id.

4. MAC ID - most reliable except if used appropriately
Problem : There are Multiple MAC addresses associated with system e.g. Wired, Wifi & most importantly, VPN allocated MAC address. Only problem here is if machine is connected to VPN will give you the different MAC.


As you can see, There is no sure shot solution to get the reliable & consistent unique id for the machine. The solution has to be a hybrid one, where you prioritize & process the available h/w information and create or decide which one to use. My Solution would be

- Use Hard disk id & Mac id together - At least one id has to be matched
- Get all available MAC addresses - At least one MAC ID should match

The best way is to store hard disk ID & All MAC addresses in some encrypted file on that machine & again check with run-time values that you would get whenever you required later and cross verify it.

The verification mechanism will be
1. Check stored Hard disk id with run-time one, If matched, everything is fine, No need to verify anything else
2. Check stored MAC with run-time one, At least, one MAC addresses should be matched here

I hope this will help you in your research of machine identification.
GeneralRe: It's risky to be depend on only one id Pin
Michael Haephrati28-Jan-15 7:22
professionalMichael Haephrati28-Jan-15 7:22 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
JunfengGuo7-Jul-14 15:16
JunfengGuo7-Jul-14 15:16 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
wangluozhanglei17-Sep-13 23:53
wangluozhanglei17-Sep-13 23:53 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Member 1023960228-Aug-13 22:24
Member 1023960228-Aug-13 22:24 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Oded Sagi15-Aug-13 4:22
Oded Sagi15-Aug-13 4:22 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
alonamir12-Aug-13 22:00
alonamir12-Aug-13 22:00 
GeneralMy vote of 4 Pin
lyyong9-Jul-13 15:25
professionallyyong9-Jul-13 15:25 
GeneralRe: My vote of 4 Pin
Michael Haephrati9-Jul-13 20:06
professionalMichael Haephrati9-Jul-13 20:06 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
alonbarak14-Jun-13 11:11
alonbarak14-Jun-13 11:11 
QuestionCurrent drive insteat of main drive Pin
Karsten Gutjahr4-Mar-13 2:30
Karsten Gutjahr4-Mar-13 2:30 
AnswerRe: Current drive insteat of main drive Pin
Michael Haephrati4-Mar-13 3:06
professionalMichael Haephrati4-Mar-13 3:06 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
BigMax26-Feb-13 7:35
professionalBigMax26-Feb-13 7:35 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Mike Meinz21-Feb-13 10:31
Mike Meinz21-Feb-13 10:31 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Member 416352421-Feb-13 5:37
Member 416352421-Feb-13 5:37 
SuggestionSuggestion Pin
Michael Haephrati20-Feb-13 12:18
professionalMichael Haephrati20-Feb-13 12:18 
GeneralRe: Suggestion PinPopular
Emilio Garavaglia20-Feb-13 21:15
Emilio Garavaglia20-Feb-13 21:15 
GeneralRe: Suggestion Pin
Michael Haephrati20-Feb-13 22:29
professionalMichael Haephrati20-Feb-13 22:29 

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