Wmic Bios Get Serialnumber
Manlio Chowdhury
I am thinking of using the users BIOS/Motherboard Serial Number to uniquely identify a user (the application runs on Windows OS). When I refer to the BIOS/Motherboard Serial Number I am referring to the serial number returned when you type in: wmic BIOS get SerialNumber
I have previously attempted to use the Hard Drive serial number to uniquely identify a user but WMI is notoriously unreliable. For example; if you are running your .exe as an elevated process you will get a different Hard Drive serial number back from WMI. Also as crazy as this sounds, I have had 2 different Windows 8 machines change their Hard Drive serial no. on me when the Hard Drives were not changed at all - I'm not crazy this really happened - I realise there's no better way for people to think you're crazy than saying 'I'm not crazy' but putting that aside - do you know if I will experience these same issues with the BIOS/Motherboard' Serial Number?
I would maybe suggest aggregating several numbers together, concatenating them, and then performing a hash to get a unique ID. You could use BIOS serial number, CPUID info, hard drive serial numbers, ethernet MAC addresses, any bit of info you can get your hands on (but only from sources which will remain static).
Yes I think you're right. From what I've read many anti-piracy software applications do this - even Windows does this to verify a purchased version of Windows (they use 10 different hardware ids to produce a hash). The only problem is; if the user changes their hard drive, or wireless device, etc. the hash will change. So I'll need to be more forgiving and create a 'verification measure'. Hash bios UUID and hard drive serial, hash ethernet mac address and something else, and so on. If 4 out of 5 hashes match ( a 'verfication measure' of 4/5) then we have correctly identified the user.
Our bug reporting system often (with the permission of the reporter) includes the BIOS Id with other system information. I've noticed it is usually 'to be filled by OEM'. Given the margins in the PC business and the lack of a business case to spent a fraction of a cent to fill that out, I'm hardly surprised.
Tying restrictions to specific hardware identifications has always been a bust, which is why dongles were invented (they provided a reliable hardware identity). Notice how popular dongles are today? Gone are the good old days of a chain of USB or better yet serial dongles sticking out the back of your computer. If ever there was a reason to torrent a cracked copy of software, the dongle was it. Fortunately, cracking hardware-based protection is so easy such cracked copies were effectively available on day zero.
As I mentioned in my first message, the 'wmic baseboard get serialnumber' command returns "0123456789" as a serial number. But it is not a correct result. I tried the same command on several desktop PCs, and some of them returned the serial number, and the others did not.
Thank you for reaching out to us. The following query may work for you. When running this and comparing the results with the locally run command "wmic bios get serialnumber" the returned output is the same.
You can determine what information is available to query by using the following schema document. Please note, there is also a separate osquery schema document which this information was taken from. Determining if the information you are looking for is present in the tables available is the first step to verifying if a query can be used to retrieve the data you're looking for.
Please note that serial numbers and Windows product keys are occasionally used interchangeably but are, in fact, two different things. Serial numbers refer to the unique hardware identifier number, whereas the Windows product key refers to your code to authenticate Windows.
To find the Windows serial number, open Windows Terminal, Powershell, or Command Prompt. Type in wmic bios get serialnumber and hit enter. If that doesn't work, try booting your device into the BIOS and looking there. Another option is to look for a serial number sticker on your device or contact the manufacturer.
Barring that, your final option is to contact the manufacturer directly. Ensure you have your receipt to verify your purchase and prepare for long wait times and frustrating questions. However, the manufacturer should be able to help by giving you the serial number or helping you find it on your own.
My problem is this: We (as in me and the company i'm working for) have 2 AOpen DE7000's touch screen computers delivered from Prestop.
The machines are COMPLETELY identical, same hardware, same screen and... same BIOS serial.
So far i've only found tools that can show me the MB serial, and not change them. I heard that some companies like dell have tools like that which they give to their support engineers.
I contacted both AOpen and Prestop, but none of both could help.
Prestop did warn that changing a MB serial could break windows, but since we're going to upgrade them soon, that's ok.
Switching MB serials does break your Windows if your windows was OEM version. But weird thing is this is the first time I heard it uses identical motherboard serials although in most cases it should be different. Are you sure both motherboard serials were identical?
absolutely, and it sounds odd to me to.
I would thin think that would be an automated process
anyway, i used the cmd command wmic bios get serialnumber.
on both machines it returned 91.AED01.70XX
For this, I would say send one of it to the supplier (Prestop in this case) for new replacement. Changing motherboard serial numbers is too risky. Done it wrong and it would be a brisked motherboard with warranty void.
After reading your post, i discussed it with my boss (the head of the IT departement here).
It turned out the computers didn't completely come through prestop after all.
Those pc's came with a webapplication for tutoring new employees.
The company where we bought those pc's apperently also delivered these computers.
what kind of network problems are you experiencing when both computers are on,do the computer have different names [you know the name given the computer when windows is installed ] ,not sure but i dont see what the bios serial #,or the motherboard #. would have to do with networking ,what i read it just tell the chipset used on the MB,the board maker,ect ect .
maybe ,depending on the networking problems you are having ,you might just change the name [of one computer ] given to the computer when windows was installed
We've given the computers 2 different names.
Also, when both computers are on, only one of them actually shows up, and they switch.
We figured that, since the bios serials are identic, that would be the problem.
I already looked up the error message, but the only thing i'm getting refers to the windows 7 oem preinstallation kit (w7_opk). which we don't have.