How to retrieve serial number of OS or CPU for copy protection?

[Klaus Bonadt]

In order to protect software from being copied without licence, I would like
to use something like a key, which fits only to the current system. The
serial number of the CPU or the current operating system would be
appropriate. However, I do not know how to retrieve the information.

Could you help?
Klaus

[Tim Roberts]

"Klaus Bonadt" <Bo****@hotmail.com> wrote:

Do you know whether or not, this activation signature is changed when
hardware configuration is modified?
Yes, it is. There is a description of the activation signature process on
Microsoft's licensing web site. There are about 10 hardware configuration
items included in the signature. Some small number of them be modified
without invalidating the signature.
Furthermore, what about OS upgrades? When Longhorn will be installed over
XP, is the activation signature affected?

Service packs and hotfixes do not affect the signature, but a brand-new
operating system (assuming that Longhorn is not release as XP SP4) will
probably have a new activation scheme.
--
- Tim Roberts, ti**@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc

[Klaus Bonadt]

I tried on two machines (Win2k and XP), both gave the following result:
Hardware ID:
UUID : FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF
Vendor :
Name :
IdentifyingNumber :
Feedback:

UUID : not valid
Vendor : empty
Name : empty
IdentifyingNumber : empty
Regards,
Klaus

[Kazi]

Hmmm, It's very interesting. We have about 50 computers on our network, 20
of them are running WinXP or Win2000 (the rest is NT4). 15 are brand PCs, 5
are noname. All of them have this kind of hardware information.
"Klaus Bonadt" <Bo****@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:un**************@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...

I tried on two machines (Win2k and XP), both gave the following result:
Hardware ID:
UUID : FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF
Vendor :
Name :
IdentifyingNumber :
Feedback:

UUID : not valid
Vendor : empty
Name : empty
IdentifyingNumber : empty
Regards,
Klaus

[Duncan Mole]

I wondered if you would consider using the MAC address for this?

http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/I-N/netw...cle.php/c5451/
"Kazi" <no****@please.com> wrote in message
news:eC**************@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...

I'm researching this problem heavily, and maybe I have found a better
solution. There is a Win32_ComputerSystemProduct class in WMI, which may
contain the information what we need.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...temproduct.asp
I have created a simple little app (WMI and .Net 1.1 runtime needed), which displays this info and I have run it on several computers. The result a bit surprising to me, almost every computer have this kind of hardware
identification information. The application contains two separate section:
the first section displays the computer identification data (HardwareID),
the second contains the result of checking the data (Feedback).

I would like to ask everybody run my attached app, and please post the
result back to this newsgroup. The result must be on of the following:

-- 1. -------------------------
UUID : ok
Vendor : ok
Name : ok
IdentifyingNumber: ok

-- 2. -------------------------
UUID : not valid
Vendor : ok
Name : ok
IdentifyingNumber: ok

-- 3. -------------------------
UUID : ok
Vendor : empty
Name : empty
IdentifyingNumber: empty

-- 4. -------------------------
The HardwareID not found!

So you can see, the feedback section of my app does not contain any
confidential data. It would be nice to see lot of feedback to get to know,
does it really works.

Thanks in advance:
Kazi

"Klaus Bonadt" <Bo****@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...

Kazi,

Do you know whether or not, this activation signature is changed when
hardware configuration is modified?
Furthermore, what about OS upgrades? When Longhorn will be installed over XP, is the activation signature affected?

Thanks and regards,
Klaus

[Kidus Yared]

Off the top I would like to say I am a beginner in C# and was not able to
understand your code from your previous posting for protecting my software. I
am trying to add this security to my C# windows form software.

Such as:
1) What is in the foreach statement mean? Could you tell me how this
actually would be written as if I am adding it to my software?
2) Also I assume after adding this method to my main class, how does it
actually prevent the copying? Does this mean that I need to actually check
each customers OS ID and customize it to the OS:
a. Get users OS ID
b. Set key to OS ID so it can only be loaded to that computer.
If so how does this work if I have no direct access to my customers?

Appreciate All your help,

Kidus.
"Kazi" wrote:

The number one problem of a copy protection algorithm is identifying
machines. Is there a number that uniquely identify a computer? Let’s call
this number as "Serial Number" (SN).

What are the requirements for a Serial Number? There are two:

1. A Serial Number must be different on different computers.
2. A Serial Number must be the same on the same computer.

Today’s PCs do not contain such a hardware id which meet these requirements.
Because of this, we should loosen these hard requirements. I’ve modified the
second requirement this way:

2. The Serial Number must be the same on the same computer, but if somebody
successfully changes the serial number on a computer, it involves serious
consequences.

I think, there is such a "Number" in Windows XP, it’s the following value in
the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\SigningHash-*...*\SigningHashData

It’s a byte array and it contains the Windows Product activation signature.
It’s hard to overwrite (the kernel protects it), but it isn’t worth to
overwrite, because the attacker can’t reactivate his copy of Windows again.

You can read that value in C# in the following way:

public static byte[] GetHardwareIdBytes()
{
using(RegistryKey rk = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(@"SYSTEM\WPA",
false))
{
foreach(string subkey in rk.GetSubKeyNames())
{
if(subkey.IndexOf("SigningHash") == 0)
{
using(RegistryKey rk1 = rk.OpenSubKey(subkey))
{
return (byte[])rk1.GetValue("SigningHashData");
}
}
}
}
// It should never happen:
throw new Exception("There is no hardware id on this computer!");
}

This solution has two disadvantages:
1. It works only on Windows XP (or later)
2. The SN changes, when the user reinstalls the operating system.
Kazi
"Klaus Bonadt" <Bo****@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ue****************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

In order to protect software from being copied without licence, I would

like

to use something like a key, which fits only to the current system. The
serial number of the CPU or the current operating system would be
appropriate. However, I do not know how to retrieve the information.

Could you help?
Klaus

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

"Kidus Yared" <Ki********@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D0**********************************@microsof t.com...

Off the top I would like to say I am a beginner in C# and was not able to
understand your code from your previous posting for protecting my
software. I
am trying to add this security to my C# windows form software.

Such as:
1) What is in the foreach statement mean? Could you tell me how this
actually would be written as if I am adding it to my software?
2) Also I assume after adding this method to my main class, how does it
actually prevent the copying? Does this mean that I need to actually check
each customers OS ID and customize it to the OS:
a. Get users OS ID
b. Set key to OS ID so it can only be loaded to that computer.
If so how does this work if I have no direct access to my customers?

Appreciate All your help,

Kidus.

I would suggest you learn the C# language before you start asking yourself
about copy protection.
I also suggest you don't cross-post to non relevant NG.

Willy.