Using WMI to read motherboard serial number using VB 1

[vbtest5]

Hi,

I plan to use motherboard serial number to control software piracy and hence will have to use WMi object in VB. I have few questions:

1. does WMI work on all OS? Win 95/97/98/2000/2003/XP/ME etc.

2. I have heard that new PC come with CMOS option to disable reading of motherboard serial number? is it true?

3. Anyone had any experience with WMI and knows limitations?

I would be glad if you can share information on this.

Regards,
VJ,

 

[strongm]

What (unique) motherboard serial number will that be, then?

 

[chiph]

As far as I know, motherboards don't have unique serial numbers. You can't rely on the CPU ID, either, as most computer BIOS settings have it disabled. Nor can you rely on a hard disk volume serial number, as a person can set it to whatever they want.

I think you'll need to look elsewhere for something to uniquely identify a computer.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[tsuji]

Hello vilasjain,

Check out this ms-article for a broad overview and some technical detail:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2/Confeat/getasset.mspx

regards - tsuji

 

[BogdanMBM]

For example on using WMI please see thread222-967554 .

1. No, it doesn't work on Win9X. Follow the links I put in thread222-967554 to see system reqs from Microsoft.

2. Don't know.

3. Some "limitations" I've found: WMI relies on the installed drivers (for instance, if you want to find out the monitor the system uses and no drivers are installed for it, WMI will just return "Default monitor").

Hope I've been helpful,
Bogdan Muresan.

 

[tsuji]

BogdanMBM wrote
>1. No, it doesn't work on Win9X
in response to the question "does WMI work on all OS? Win 95/97/98/2000/2003/XP/ME etc."
It is not true. win9x Os sure have limitations, but to say wmi does not work on win9x, it is going too far.

- tsuji

 

[strongm]

>[WMI] doesn't work on Win9X

Well, not by default. However, it is worth pointing out that WMI is downloadable for W9x (e.g.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...8-7071-4979-8a67-3cffcb0c2524&displaylang=en)

But, as I was hinting at in my original post, and as chiph made more clear, adding WMI to W9x won't help since there is not really any such thing as unique motherboard serial numbers

 

[tsuji]

Also that there is a possibility that one person's serial number is not the other person's serial number in _mind_.

set svc=getobject("winmgmts:root\cimv2")
set cbb=svc.instancesof("win32_baseboard")
for each obb in cbb
	debug.print obb.manufacturer & vbcrlf & obb.serialnumber
next
set cbb=nothing
set svc=nothing

On dated boards, it may not deliver.

- tsuji

 

[BogdanMBM]

tsuji,
I was simply telling what Microsoft states on many of the WMI pages (for example at

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/win32_processor.asp)

:

Requirements
Client: Requires Windows XP, Windows 2000 Professional, or Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP4 and later.
Server: Requires Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Server, or Windows NT Server 4.0 SP4 and later.
Header: Declared in Cimwin32.mof.
DLL: Cimwin32.dll
Namespace: Included in \root\cimv2.

But if you know how to use WMI on Win95/98, please tell me, 'cause it would be very nice for me to make some of my programs that uses WMI to work on this platforms. (My parents have a Win98 computer and my program doesn't work on it :-( ).
Thanks in advance and I'm waiting for your repply (or other's)!

 

[BogdanMBM]

Oups, strongm, I didn't see your post. Now I know how to make WMI work on 95/98. A star from me, he he he!!!