what property/method will return a computer-unique identifier?

[TC]

Er, how do you suggest he gets the "hard drive serial number"?

It's sure not GetVolumeInfo! That is the >volume< serial number, a
completely different thing, which is easily changed by an end-user.

Cheers,
TC

 

[Peter De Baets]

The hard drive serial number or "disk signature" is stored in the
registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/MountedDevices/,
\DosDevices\C:, first 4 bytes of the data value.

As far as I know, it can be duplicated for drives of the same size
from the same manufacturer.

Hope this helps,

Peter De Baets
Peter's Software - MS Access Tools for Developers
http://www.peterssoftware.com

 

[Jeff Conrad]

Just curiosity here Peter.
Would the same number be returned if several machines are all "ghosted" using Norton Ghost?

 

[TC]

Urk! News to me that it's in the registry! Thanks for that, I'll look into
it further.

I used to get it in win 9x, via a very weird CreateFile call on
..\\.VWIN32.VMM (or whatever the syntax is - I don't have old code here to
check). But that code won't work in later win32 OS's, due to greater
security checks - I think it has to be in a kernel mode driver.

When you say "disk signature", is that actually the manufacturer's serial
number (as stored on the physical disk unit), or is it a random hash that is
generated (like with a floppy) to see if the [removable] unit has been
removed?

Cheers,
TC

 

[TC]

P.S. Love the nifty security in the demo version of ShrinkerStretcher! So
much for the owner of the database bing one of those users who has full
access to all objects in the database!

Cheers,
TC

 

[Peter De Baets]

My understanding is that it is a manufacturer's serial number and it
is stored on the physical disk unit and it gets copied to the registry
sometime during startup. But don't quote me on all this!

All the best,

Peter De Baets
Peter's Software - MS Access Tools for Developers
http://www.peterssoftware.com

 

[Peter De Baets]

I would expect so, but I have not tested this.

Best,

Peter De Baets
Peter's Software - MS Access Tools for Developers
http://www.peterssoftware.com

 

[TC]

Thanks, I'll follow that up.

TC

My understanding is that it is a manufacturer's serial number and it
is stored on the physical disk unit and it gets copied to the registry
sometime during startup. But don't quote me on all this!

All the best,

Peter De Baets
Peter's Software - MS Access Tools for Developers
http://www.peterssoftware.com

When you say "disk signature", is that actually the manufacturer's serial
number (as stored on the physical disk unit), or is it a random hash that is
generated (like with a floppy) to see if the [removable] unit has been
removed?