Desktop Serial Number Command

[Luisa Rodocker]

Windowsdoesn't display your PC's serial number anywhere in its interface, and neither do popular system information tools. But you can often find a PC's serial number with a simple command, a peek in your BIOS, or on the hardware itself.

Open a Command Prompt or PowerShell window to get started. On Windows 11, Windows 10, or Windows 8, right-click the Start button and select "Command Prompt," "PowerShell," or "Windows Terminal." On Windows 7, press Windows + R, type "cmd" into the Run dialog, and then press Enter.

You'll see the computer's serial number displayed beneath the text "SerialNumber". This command uses the Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) tool to pull the system's serial number from its BIOS.

If you don't see your PC's serial number, blame your PC's manufacturer. The number will only appear here if the PC manufacturer saved it to your computer's BIOS or UEFI firmware. PC manufacturers don't always fill in the number properly. In that case, you'll see something like "0," "To be filled by O.E.M." or blank space instead of an actual serial number.

You may also be able to find the serial number in the BIOS or UEFI firmware settings screen. This technique won't get you a serial number if the wmic command didn't, since the command pulls the serial number from the BIOS. However, checking the BIOS could be helpful if you can't actually sign into Windows to run the wmic command.

Access the BIOS or UEFI firmware settings screen and look around for a "Serial Number" somewhere on a system information screen. It'll be in a different place on different PCs, but you can usually find it somewhere on the "Main" or "System" screen.

And if you just can't find your serial number at all, don't give up hope. If you have proof of purchase, the manufacturer still may be able to help you with whatever service you need and may even be able to find out the serial number for you.

Use the Service tag as your computer name (also makes fully automated builds simpler). the command wmic bios get serialnumber will give you servicetag details. With basic windows getting the Computer name from the service tag without a central database is not possible.

On Windows 10, the computer model number can come in handy in many situations. For example, the model number can make it easier to find the correct hardware upgrade (such as memory, storage drive, monitor, and power supply). Or if you must troubleshoot a problem or contact technical support. It can also come in handy to catalog the device in an inventory.

Although manufacturers typically use stickers or print the information on the chassis of their laptops or desktops, Windows 10 allows you to check the model number and the serial number (service tag) using the System Information app, Command Prompt, and PowerShell.

Mauro Huculak has been a Windows How-To Expert contributor for WindowsCentral.com for nearly a decade and has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides. He also has an IT background and has achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and CompTIA. He has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Mauro HuculakSocial Links NavigationMauro Huculak has been a Windows How-To Expert contributor for WindowsCentral.com for nearly a decade and has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides. He also has an IT background and has achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and CompTIA. He has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years.

I can put on selectedmonitors:s:x,y and then use the zero-based numbers to indicate my monitors. To get a list of monitors, I can run mstsc /l to LIST out all my monitors on my machine. I can also use mstsc /multimon as a command line to use multiple monitors.

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Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson here. The weekend is halfway over in Charlotte, North Carolina. For my friends in Australia, the weekend is already over, and they are on their way to work. Of course they get to start their weekend earlier than I do. The ideal thing to do is to be in Australia to start the weekend, and then pop back to Charlotte to conclude the weekend. Yes, I have strange thoughts on the weekend. For example, I was on the treadmill earlier, and I was thinking about my favorite Windows PowerShell cmdlet. Anyway, I called the Scripting Wife while I was cooling down. She was downstairs and it is easier to call her than to go down there. Cell phones make great intercoms.

There is also a words switched parameter that will return the number of words in the text file. It is used similarly to the character or line switched parameter. The command is shown here:

In the following figure, I use the Measure-Object cmdlet to count lines; then lines and characters; and finally lines, characters, and words. These commands illustrate combining the switches to return specific information.

One really cool thing I can do with the Measure-Object cmdlet is to measure specific properties of the piped objects. For example, I can use the Get-ChildItem cmdlet to return fileinfo objects for all the text files in the folder. I can examine the length property and find out the minimum length of the files in the folder, the maximum length, the average size, and the total length of all files in the folder. This command and associated output are shown here:

If I want to, I can pipe the output to a table and create my own custom headings and output. In the following example, I display the average size of the files in kilobytes. I also define the format to omit decimal places:

I invite you to follow me on Twitter and Facebook. If you have any questions, send email to me at scri...@microsoft.com, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.

Could someone who knows explain how Docker Desktop computes the URL of the page that is launched when user clicks Open in Browser command for a running ASP.NET 5.0 Core microservice container? Specifically:

I saw your hypothesis mentioned in one of the comments in this Issue: How do I configure what port will be opened in the browser when clicking on "Open in Browser" in the dashboard Issue #9537 docker/for-win GitHub. But your explanation above is much clearer and more detailed - thank you for that. If the hypothesis is proved (or confirmed) to be correct, it would be nice if the explanation can be included in Docker Desktop documentation somewhere.

So I was hoping you or someone else on this forum has access to the Docker Desktop source code and can look it up and explain how exactly it constructs the URL - which would help me figure out the root cause of the issue.

Clicking Open in Browser gives me the same ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE error page - URL is (without port number). Editing the URL and hitting Enter does not resolve the issue. I am assuming this is expected behavior since busybox does not serve a web application.

Determining your PC's serial number is generally as simple as checking a sticker on the case. Sometimes, you'll need another way of discovering the serial number, and commands like dmidecode can help.

This command won't work on all devices. RHEL and CentOS users commonly encounter issues. If the Terminal prompts you to say that SMBIOS implementations newer than version 2.8 are not fully supported by this version of dmidecode, you will need to update your dmidecode using the following DNF package manager command:

There are a few commands beyond dmidecode that can help you find your PC's serial number on Linux. If you're using openSUSE, Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, or RHEL, you can also try entering the following command in the Terminal:

Of course, you may need to install hwinfo if your device doesn't already have the utility installed. This command will only succeed if your device has its serial number embedded in its BIOS.

While your PC's serial number isn't a particularly important characteristic, it's important to know for purposes like making warranty claims. If you have identical devices, their serial numbers are also a reliable tool to distinguish between them.

You could use serial numbers to restrict software licenses or to track the repairs on a warrantied device. You can even use the serial number to verify that the new part you're purchasing is the same model if you ever need to replace or upgrade a PC component.

Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physicalterminal between several processes, typically interactive shells. Eachvirtual terminal provides the functions of the DEC VT100 terminal and,in addition, several control functions from the ISO 6429 (ECMA 48, ANSI X3.64)and ISO 2022 standards (e.g. insert/delete line and support for multiplecharacter sets). There is a scrollback history buffer for each virtualterminal and a copy-and-paste mechanism that allows the user to movetext regions between windows.

When a program terminates, screen (per default) kills the windowthat contained it. If this window was in the foreground, the displayswitches to the previously displayed window; if none are left,screen exits. Shells usually distinguish between running as login-shell or sub-shell.Screen runs them as sub-shells, unless told otherwise (See shell .screenrc command).

Everything you type is sent to the program running in the currentwindow. The only exception to this is the one keystroke that is used toinitiate a command to the window manager. By default, each commandbegins with a control-a (abbreviated C-a from now on), and isfollowed by one other keystroke. The command character (see Command Character) and all the key bindings (see Key Binding) can be fullycustomized to be anything you like, though they are always twocharacters in length.

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