I went around this last year, and several machine ID schemes came up, all with
shortcomings.
HDD ID - great until the drive is swapped (or another drive has the same ID)
Network card ID - apparently this is definitely a unique Serial number but it
requires a network card in the PC
CPU ID - this was not unique, giving only the batch details of the chip edition.
System footprint - a combination of HDD ID, Ram size, cpu id, and other system
specific data. This is 'fragile' because any upgrade might cause the check to
fail.
Hardware Dongle - expensive
I chose the HDD ID, it is at least a close free approximation of perfect.
Otherwise the network card is cheaper and as foolproof as the dongle.
Leo Ramakers
Tom Munro Glass wrote:
> I've also been using the HD serial number to try and stop people making
> illegal copies of my code, and also encountered batches of machines with the
> same number.
>
> Does anyone know of a foolproof way of uniquely identifying a machine so
> that code can be locked to only work on that machine?
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