Best way to get a unique identifier in C# [duplicate]

Question

I've asked a similar question before, but I'm now reducing some of the restrictions about what I need.

I need to find a unique identifier on a computer, efficiently, with C#. It should always stay the same on any particular computer, and can be a composite of many factors - provided it's simple to retrieve.

I've thought about using the MAC address with WMI Network queries, but this is too slow as usually there are 10+ adapters. Might be better with a WHERE IPEnabled=true clause, but I think there's probably something better than this.

Ideas?

(P.S. It doesn't have to be TOTALLY unique. As long as the chance of collision is small, it's perfect.)

Answer 1

First Get the Processor ID like following: (Add Reference to System.Management)

    ManagementObjectCollection mbsList = null;
    ManagementObjectSearcher mbs = new ManagementObjectSearcher("Select * From Win32_processor");
    mbsList = mbs.Get();
    string id = "";
    foreach (ManagementObject mo in mbsList)
    {
        id = mo["ProcessorID"].ToString();
    }

//Then you can get the motherboard serial number:

    ManagementObjectSearcher mos = new ManagementObjectSearcher("SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard");
    ManagementObjectCollection moc = mos.Get();
    string motherBoard = "";
    foreach (ManagementObject mo in moc)
    {
        motherBoard = (string)mo["SerialNumber"];
    }

You can concat the above two and get a unique ID

    string myUniqueID = id + motherBoard;
    Console.WriteLine(myUniqueID);

Also check out this link Finding Hardware ID, CPU ID, Motherboard ID, Hard-Disk ID of a computer