What should be the unique ID of a machine? Its motherboard ID? Windows Product ID?
I want to retrieve the unique ID of a machine.
Like others I also did a lot of research, and found none of the process of Unique ID generation works perfectly.
For Motherboard Serial Number (ID): It is Unique; it can't be changed. However, it may not be found in some machines if Manufacturers didn't put information on Memory Location. Then I found it gives no Unique Id .. lol
Similarly for "Processor ID", "BIOS ID".
Afraid to use other hardware information of PC.
MAC and Windows Product ID can be changed by a software.
And is "Windows Product ID" unique?
One option is there to combine those but what if combination is not unique if above conditions applied?
Any other way to find the Unique ID of a machine?
Edit: I want to generate serial key based on that unique ID for software piracy protection. Machine means target PC I've to install software. @Guge: Thanks for mentioning.
Answer
the Unique ID of a machine?
There is no such thing as "The Unique ID of a machine", as you have found.
You need to define your requirements, and use an ID (possibly allocated by yourself) that meets those requirements. E.g. for a web app, a cookie with a GUID might be sufficient to distinguish otherwise anonymous users (the small number of users who use multiple browsers or "in private" mode can be ignored).
For systems management assigning a GUID at the system level should be enough (multiple OS installs with multi-boot need to be tracked separately anyway).
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