Grabbing Computer's Serial Number

[JDYoder]

Anyone know how to do it in VB.NET?

[DiverDan]

This will return the CPU serial number.

Imports System.Management

Dim sysID As String = String.Empty
Dim manClass As New ManagementClass("Win32_Processor")
Dim mObjCol As ManagementObjectCollection = manClass.GetInstances
Dim m As ManagementObject

For Each m In mObjCol
   If sysID = "" Then
       sysID = m.Properties("ProcessorId").Value
       Exit For
   End If
Next
MessageBox.Show(sysID)

Hope this helps.

[JDYoder]

The first line (Imports) doesn't work for me -- I don't have a "System.Management" namespace. Do I have to do something to enable it?

[DiverDan]

You'll need to add a reference to the System.Management dll. From the VS IDE's main menu select Project | Add Reference | .NET tab | System.Management.

[JDYoder]

Thanks. I thought having "System" available made everything within it available, but I guess not. Interesting that even though mObjCol is a ManagementObjectCollection, that I couldn't access the first element directly, which is why I'm guessing you made the loop. Is there any particular reason this object is set up that way?

 

Thanks again.

[DiverDan]

I'm just guessing, but the Management Object Collection is probably setup this way to allow for various combinations and quantities of processors within a single computer. I used a loop because I only needed the first processor as a reference.

[mandelbrot]

I thought having "System" available made everything within it available

 

No - Namespaces simply declare a hierachy, similar to a directory structure scenario, in that even though you specify System (namespace), it only provides access to the Classes within that namespace, and not to any sub-namespaces. It's very much like the With statement from VB6, allowing you to act upon that particular level (of an object/class within VB6, but Namespace within .NET)

 

 

Paul.

[snarfblam]

Also, different libraries can define classes in the same dlls. You can reference System.Windows.Forms.dll but there still may be classes in System.Windows.Forms that you cannot access because they are defined in System.Design.Dll (not sure that that is true, but it is just an example).