How can I get the serial number of the processor?

[Amr Al-Amir]

I want to protect my program from illegal copying;

How can I get the serial number of the processor or other hardware

And is there a better way for protection?

[Capp]

Here is a premade project that shows you how to get all sorts of hardware information:

http://www.codeproject.com/vbscript/VvvHardwareInfo.asp


If you are selling this program and want to issue licenses and help prevent pirating, I suggest using a "wrapper program" or an encapsulating program such as Armadillo: Armadillo

[Al42]

I want to protect my program from illegal copying;

How can I get the serial number of the processor or other hardware

And is there a better way for protection?

Microsoft, with all their expertise and resources, can't prevent all copying, so the best you can do is make it difficult for the person to copy. The more difficult you make it the better the chance that they'll give up. (That means a few totally unrelated methods. They break one, it still doesn't work. They find another and break it, it still doesn't work. After the 5th or 6th one, most people will have given up.)

[RobDog888]

Using WMI in VB will get you just about anything too. But do note that a CPU serial number is protected in the BIOS with an option to hide it from discovery/reading outside of the BIOS.

[Hack]

Microsoft, with all their expertise and resources, can't prevent all copying, so the best you can do is make it difficult for the person to copy. The more difficult you make it the better the chance that they'll give up. (That means a few totally unrelated methods. They break one, it still doesn't work. They find another and break it, it still doesn't work. After the 5th or 6th one, most people will have given up.)

This is something that you should keep in mind when adding "copy protection" to your application.

There is no 100% guarentee.