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Let Say there are two identical systems. One of which has licence version of windows and I am ghosting entire drive into second computer's hdd. will windows ever come two know? If that system is not connected to internet ?

Is CPU_ID unique Identifier or is it a cpu product ID.

I know mac address is unique in a system but I want to dig deeper in finding unique identifiers of system. Take a look at this. What should be the unique ID of a machine? Its motherboard ID? Windows Product ID?


I am working on visual C#.

Bart Friederichs
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Harsh Shah
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  • how does that related to C# BTW? – Rahul May 14 '18 at 09:32
  • Or any other programming-language? – MakePeaceGreatAgain May 14 '18 at 09:32
  • What are you trying to do? This sounds like an [XY problem](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem). – Bart Friederichs May 14 '18 at 09:33
  • I'm working on windows application development so I thought that's worth mentioning. – Harsh Shah May 14 '18 at 09:34
  • I'm looking to avoid a "ghost drive" problem for my software. I understand that by introducing Internet reg. and Hardware keys, it can be avoided. but can we scratch our heads for any code based sol. – Harsh Shah May 14 '18 at 09:36
  • @HarshShah please describe then what you mean by "ghost drive problem", what you have tried to solve and why those solutions don't work for you. Then the problem is hopefully narrow enough to get a decent answer. – Bart Friederichs May 14 '18 at 09:47
  • Consider this. Two Identical computer system. Having same generations of CPU. Same product vendor and version of motherboard, RAM and even same capacity of HDD. I am installing windows in first system and my software in same system. After that Using " Norton Ghost" I am copying system 1's HDD IMAGE. into System 2's HDD. Windows and software works fine. but does windows knows that this is entire different system. I am not using any Windows activation process. I am not using any Internet based reg. System nor using hardware protection dongle for software as well. – Harsh Shah May 14 '18 at 10:01
  • Again, what are you trying to do? Why does it matter that Windows knows, or doesn't know this is the same system. Are you trying to prevent piracy of your product? Are you trying to prevent piracy of Windows? – Bart Friederichs May 14 '18 at 10:24
  • Yes, I'm trying to prevent piracy of my product. – Harsh Shah May 14 '18 at 11:53

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The Kernel is compiled with specific drivers and the Kernel knows all the information about the hardware including their firmware version and hardware Ids. (one of the reason for BSOD)

If you install a windows and change the HDD to another same set-up, windows might try to repair and work. However if you have TPM chip and Bitlocker enabled, windows will ask you for the BitLocker recover key as soon as you've changed the hardware setup. That's because windows kernel knows each hardware and their ID's and therefor changes in them.

In order to answer you intended question, don't bother trying to prevent privacy you will never succeed and there will be someone to crack it. Instead spend that time on your actual product and marketing. People who want's to steal, they will steal anyway or won't use. Spend your time for those who would want to buy your product.

Having said that, move important code to web service if you really that much worried.

Engineer
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