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Vic D'Elfant · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:37 am Post subject: Unique computer id

Hi,

does any of you know if there's some id which is unique for every computer in the world? Confused

I need it for registration perposes; I have thought about the hard drive's serial number, but I dunno if it's really unique... And this number must not change when the user reinstalls Windows, adds hardware or whatever.

Thanks,
Vic

jules · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 11:10 am Post subject:

I would have thought that the hard drive serial number is unique enough for all practical purposes, and can be obtained using @volinfo(). If the computer has a network card, then its MAC address is unique. I don't know how you go about obtaining it programmatically, though.

Serge · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 12:57 pm Post subject:

judging by the feedback microsoft has had on their idea of using a unique id number based on a particular computer setup, i would be weary of going down that road

i have a program that is reasonably popular and that requires registration to access all its features...i ask people to fill in a basic registration form and then i send them their registration name + their name encrypted with blowfish.dll with a key of my choosing...of course, that arrangement is pre-built into my program so that only the correct registration and encryption will be accepted...i do this with all my programs in fact, even the ones i sell...so far i am happy with that arrangement and i have been doing this for a number of years...is there a reason why you do not like that option?

you could always make your own unique number...for example, if a hd has a serial number 423589 (i have no idea what they are) and if the system has 256 mb of ram, and if the system has a 2.1ghz cpu, you could come up with the number 42358925621 and then encrypt it or hex it or whatever to make it less obvious...it will not be totally unique but if you pick numbers from several components, what are the chances that 2 machines will have exactly the same number for each component...and as the old crusader said in indiana jones (about the cup of christ) "choose wisely" which component you want to use

you could even use the name of whatever component was used by the machine eg ibm would become 9213 (a=1, b=2,...)

hope this helps

serge

Rubes_sw · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 1:21 pm Post subject:

You could use:

vdsonline.dll to obtain the IP address of the network card, then use macid.dll to get the Mac ID of the network card using the IP address.

I think this would be a good idea, because very rarely would a network card develop a fault, but hard disks are prone to failure...

Nathan

jules · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 1:51 pm Post subject:

FreezingFire · **Admin Team** Joined: 23 Jun 2002 Posts: 3508

I agree with you Jules. I find it somewhat annoying that Microsoft has all
of this activation etc., because I like to re-install Windows about every
year to fix any problems that I can't fix myself. Pretty soon I'll run out
of licenses and have to call them. Rolling Eyes

Skit3000 · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:22 pm Post subject:

Vic, you could also make something which connects to an online database once a month, which sends the IP, computer name and registration info to it. Then you can check if two people are using the same registration, and you can block them out for updates, etc. Smile

CodeScript · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 4:43 pm Post subject:

That may brand one's app a spyware and may prove devastating for it's/authors future Question

My 2 cents

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1566

If you notify within the license what you transmit over the internet and you actually are only transfering such information then NO your app will not be considered spyware. I do this for all of my software and have not been branded as a spyware distributor. I only obtain the ORDER/SERIAL entered into the software and nothing more when the software connects to the net.

IMHO there is no reason to bind a registration to a certain hardware configuration. If a customer is willing to honestly purchase your software then they are more then willing to purchase more copies of your product if you price it right. For those that are willing to steal trust me they will find a way to do so, there will be cracks to patch out your protections and people will purchase your products with stolen credit cards to obtain serials.

You also need to think to yourself the amount of technical support requests you will receive because of hardware failure. I get close to 30-40 emails a month with people asking for their serial numbers again because their harddrive failed on them or something else in their PC gave up and they had to either fix the PC or buy another thus they need the serials for the products again. Now if you tied such serials to hardware you could have even more technical support requests.

Hardware failure is very rare but if you have alot of customers you will get some of those emails eventually. Also think of when a customer buys a new pc and wants to use the software on the new pc, they now have to contact you to flag their order to accept a new harddrive ID. More trouble then it's worth really.

tim6389 · Professional Member Joined: 01 Aug 2002 Posts: 790

also to some computers don't have network cards to...so if a user wants to run your s/w on a machine like that then that could cuase a problem your best bet it to uses harddrive serial, AND windows product key Smile

Garrett · Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004 2:01 am Post subject:

I change Harddrives on a regular basis, as well as ethernet cards due
to the heavy use of these items on my systems. I will not buy any
software that uses such things for registration.

-Garrett

Vic D'Elfant · Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004 2:12 pm Post subject:

Thanks for all the replies Very Happy