[quote=89894:@Ryan Hartz]Thank you to all who have contributed to this post. I think I found a solution to my needs, and that will include the MAC address. The SIDs was another option but I couldn’t get it to work on the Mac in testing.
I know there is a lot of debate on MAC addresses as the values can change with a computer repair or by the user themselves. As I mentioned earlier, I already have a pretty good registration process in place where I send out reg codes to the user. MAC address or computer identifiers not necessary.
My need for the unique identifier is for when the apps are use in colleges/universities. I am going to begin allowing individual students to log in with their own credentials after the IT dept has installed the program and registered it (currently have been instructing the IT guys to create a general login on the computer and give all students access to it - way too many phone calls to instruct on how to do this and ultimately, there could’ve been an infinite number of students using - cuts into profits). I wanted a way to prevent the need of the students having to see the registration screen, since this had already been done by the school staff. The reg screen comes up if the reg db is blank. I think with the MAC address, I’ll be able to get the students to connect to the server on first run only to see if the MAC address matches the one present. If it does, the reg db fills with the info, and that step is bypassed.
I’m sure you may cringe when reading that and think I’ll be getting many calls from the schools, but I think this method will relieve many of the calls I’ve received thus far. Plus, as always, I’ll build in a backdoor, should the school not be able to connect to the server, or some other reason.
Again, thank you all who have contributed your valuable thoughts[/quote]
Not to mention many can purposely duplicate MAC addresses with VMWare.