Question

How to get CPU and Motherboard serial number in VB6...?

Asked by: ISKPatel

Hi all ..?
i developed a software in vb 6 and now i want to put some security in Instalations or running on my clien's machine..
tel me how can i get a Motherboard or CUP serial number through VB6 program ...
and how can i able to check through Instalation process of software...
Thanks
ISKPatel

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2005-05-22 at 23:26:45ID21433087
Tags

serial

,

get

,

number

,

motherboard

,

vb6

Topic

Visual Basic Programming

Participating Experts
4
Points
100
Comments
6

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Motherboard or CPU serial number?
    How do I find either the Motherboard or CPU serial(s) within Delphi4?
  2. Reading Processor or Motherboard Serial Number
    How can I read Read Processor or Motherboard Serial Number? Is every processor or motherboard have a unique serial number?
  3. VB access to MotherBoard Serial Number
    How can I again access to the motherboard's serial number using VB6. I have code to get the HDD's serial number, but the motherboard number seems more appropriate for authentication purposes. Any input or suggestions will be apprieciated. Suz
  4. MotherBoard Serial Number
    Hi!! I want to ask how can I get the motherboard serial number? does the coding below is correct or not? Public Function MBSerialNumber() As String 'RETRIEVES SERIAL NUMBER OF MOTHERBOARD 'IF THERE IS MORE THAN ONE MOTHERBOARD, THE SERIAL 'NUMBERS WILL BE DELIMITED...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: VIMALCHANDPosted on 2005-05-23 at 00:36:10ID: 14058331

'paste in a form
Private Sub Command1_Click()
MsgBox GetHardDiskSerial("C")
MsgBox GetVersion
End Sub

'paste in a module
Private Declare Function GetWindowsVersion Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetVersion" () As Long
Private Declare Function GetVolumeInformation& Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetVolumeInformationA" (ByVal lpRootPathName As String, ByVal pVolumeNameBuffer As String, ByVal nVolumeNameSize As Long, lpVolumeSerialNumber As Long, lpMaximumComponentLength As Long, lpFileSystemFlags As Long, ByVal lpFileSystemNameBuffer As String, ByVal nFileSystemNameSize As Long)


Public Function GetVersion() As Long
    On Error GoTo ErrTrap
    GetVersion& = GetWindowsVersion&
Exit Function
ErrTrap:
    GetVersion& = 0&
End Function



Public Function GetHardDiskSerial(Optional sDrive As String) As Long
    On Error GoTo ErrTrap
    Dim lNumber As Long, sBuffer As String * 255
    If sDrive$ = "" Then sDrive$ = "C"
    Call GetVolumeInformation(sDrive$ & ":\", sBuffer$, 255, lNumber&, 0&, 0&, sBuffer$, 255)
    GetHardDiskSerial& = lNumber&
Exit Function
ErrTrap:
    Call MsgBox("Error " & Err.Number & ": " & Err.Description, vbOKOnly + vbCritical, "Error")
    HardDiskSerial& = 0&
End Function

 

by: DhaestPosted on 2005-05-23 at 01:02:52ID: 14058423

Obtaining Baseboard (Motherboard) Information using WMI
http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?code/wmi/win32_baseboard.htm

Obtaining Processor Information using WMI
http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?code/wmi/win32_processor.htm

 

by: jarnsaterPosted on 2005-05-23 at 02:38:23ID: 14058794

I wouldn't recommend using volume serial number (as described by Vimalchand above) since this number will change if you format your drive.

I'm currently developing a piece of software that will do a hardware and software inventory of all computers, and what I've found best to use for secure identification is CPU id and BIOS id.

These can be retrieved by using WMI, as in my example below.
WMI is very powerful and can be used to get all available info about the computer.

Check here if you want to know about additional WMI classes available:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/win32_classes.asp

---------------
'Add the following code to a module (called e.g. WMI)
Option Explicit

Private m_mainWmi As Object
Private m_deviceLists As Collection

Private Function GetMainWMIObject() As Object
  On Error GoTo eh
  If m_mainWmi Is Nothing Then
    Set m_mainWmi = GetObject("WinMgmts:")
  End If
  Set GetMainWMIObject = m_mainWmi
  Exit Function
eh:
  Set GetMainWMIObject = Nothing
End Function

Public Function WmiIsAvailable() As Boolean
  WmiIsAvailable = CBool(Not GetMainWMIObject Is Nothing)
End Function

Public Function GetWmiDeviceSingleValue(ByVal WmiClass As String, ByVal WmiProperty As String) As String
  On Error GoTo done
  Dim result As String
 
  Dim wmiclassObjList As Object
  Set wmiclassObjList = GetWmiDeviceList(WmiClass)
  Dim wmiclassObj As Object
  For Each wmiclassObj In wmiclassObjList
    result = CallByName(wmiclassObj, WmiProperty, VbGet)
    Exit For
  Next

done:
  GetWmiDeviceSingleValue = Trim(result)
End Function

Public Function GetWmiDeviceList(ByVal WmiClass As String) As Object
  If m_deviceLists Is Nothing Then
    Set m_deviceLists = New Collection
  End If
 
  On Error GoTo fetchNew
 
  Set GetWmiDeviceList = m_deviceLists.Item(WmiClass)
  Exit Function
 
fetchNew:
  Dim devList As Object
  Set devList = GetWmiDeviceListInternal(WmiClass)
  If Not devList Is Nothing Then
    Call m_deviceLists.Add(devList, WmiClass)
  End If
  Set GetWmiDeviceList = devList
End Function

Private Function GetWmiDeviceListInternal(ByVal WmiClass As String) As Object
  On Error GoTo eh
  Set GetWmiDeviceListInternal = GetMainWMIObject.Instancesof(WmiClass)
  Exit Function
eh:
  Set GetWmiDeviceListInternal = Nothing
End Function


------------------------------

' then anywhere in your program you could write the fllowing to get the id:s

  Dim CPU As String
  CPU = GetWmiDeviceSingleValue("Win32_Processor", "ProcessorID")
 
  Dim BIOS As String
  BIOS = GetWmiDeviceSingleValue("Win32_BIOS", "SerialNumber")

 

by: ISKPatelPosted on 2005-05-23 at 23:54:09ID: 14066012

Thanks... jarnsater
i use ur code but they not bisplay BIOS serial number
rest all working...
thanks again
ISKPatel

 

by: deliriumxxPosted on 2009-06-11 at 11:02:31ID: 24605028

jarnsater, does your code work for a 64bit system?

 

by: jarnsaterPosted on 2009-06-11 at 13:29:43ID: 24606533

Yes, we are currently using the program described above on many customers entire machine park, which includes 64 bit systems.

WMI is encapsulating all the nasty stuff (including different handling for 32bit vs 64bit) allowing us to concentrate of writing great apps instead :)

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...