Uniquely identify PC based on software/hardware

c++ security winapi hardware-id
Mr. Boy picture Mr. Boy · Sep 3, 2010 · Viewed 10.8k times · Source

For a requirement to generate per-PC license keys, I need some code which will return a stable and (near) unique key on any PC. It doesn't have to be guaranteed unique, but close. It does need to be reasonably stable though, so that a given PC always generates the same result unless the hardware is substantially changed.

This is for a Windows application, using wxWidgets but a Win32 or other option is fine.

I was thinking about MAC address but what about laptops which can routinely disable the network card in power-saving mode? I came across GetCurrentHwProfile but it doesn't quite look like what I want?

Answer

tenfour picture tenfour · Sep 3, 2010

One idea I had a while back for this is to use CryptProtectData as a way to identify a machine. Behind-the-scenes in that API, Microsoft has done what you're looking for. I never tested it though and I'm curious if it's actually viable.

Basically you would encode a constant magic value with CryptProtectData with CRYPTPROTECT_LOCAL_MACHINE, and the result is your machine ID.

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