What is a good unique PC identifier?

Question

I've been looking at the code in this tutorial, and I found that it uses My.Computer.Name to save settings that shouldn't roam between computers. It's entirely possible, however, for a user to have two identically named PCs. If they wanted to have the same username on each PC, for example, they may very well end up with two PCs named Username-PC.

What are some good methods of identifying different PCs? Do PCs have GUIDs associated with them, or should I look into pulling the serial number off of some hardware? I don't care if the identification persists through reinstallation of Windows.

(The tutorial I linked is in VB.Net, but I'm implementing it in C#)

Answer 1

I don't think it's possible to have two PC's with the same name on the same domain. Have you tried capturing the domain name?

Answer 2

Take a look here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1537908/getting-service-tag-from-dell-machine-using-net

You could snatch some unique data from the registry.

Answer 3

Each computer has a SID that's unique under normal circumstances.

Answer 4

One thing you can use is the MAC of any Network interface. You can also combine several sources of information. Like HDD Serial number, mac, processor type to calculate a hash from it.

Answer 5

Some good identifiers:

• MAC Address: It's fairly easy to get at, and it's usually unique. However, it can be spoofed/changed rather easily, so it depends on how unique it needs to be.
• CPU Serial Number: It's not available on lots of older systems, but it's there. Check out this MSDN page. It won't change, but it's bound to a computer.
• HDD Serial Number: It's likely to not change, but can be a nuisance if the HD fails. Check out this MSDN page.

Answer 6

If you are on windows HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ProductId is unique per machine/per windows install. where as in some of the other answers like the MAC address, Proc SN, and HD SN will stay the same between windows reinstalls/dual boot situations.

Answer 7

Use the network card's MAC address. It's supposed to be unique. It can be changed, though. It depends on how malicious you expect your users to be and how critical your application is.

Some sample code to do it:

public string GetMACAddress() {
    ManagementClass mc = new ManagementClass("Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration");
    ManagementObjectCollection moc = mc.GetInstances();

    string MACAddress = String.Empty;

    foreach (ManagementObject mo in moc) {
        if (MACAddress == String.Empty) { // only return MAC Address from first card
            if ((bool)mo["IPEnabled"] == true) MACAddress = mo["MacAddress"].ToString();
        }
        mo.Dispose();
    }

    return MACAddress;
}