CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#winformsuniqueidentifier
Ahmed Shamel
Ahmed Shamel

Reputation: 1962

Is PNPDeviceID of video card adapter unique?

I need to get a unique id of video card adapter. When searching in the properties of the device (using Device Manager of Windows), I notice that there is a property named Hardware Ids as shown in image bellow.

Hardware Ids of video card adapter

I tried to get these Ids in my winform application. I found this method:

string VideoCardInfoID()
{
  ManagementObjectSearcher objvide = new ManagementObjectSearcher("select * from Win32_VideoController");
  string output = string.Empty;
  foreach (ManagementObject obj in objvide.Get())
  {
    output += (obj["PNPDeviceID"] + "\n");             
  }
  return output;
}

The output of this code is:

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1055&SUBSYS_908A104D&REV_A1\4&F7451F8&0&0008

I have two questions:

  1. Is PNPDeviceID of video card adapter unique across all machines? does it change when new fresh Windows installed? I know there some similar questions in stack overflow, but they does not contain a clear answers, such as this question and this question.

  2. Why there is additional characters in the output of the c# function (\4&F7451F8&0&0008)?

Update: I try install new fresh Windows and the Hardware Ids and PNPDeviceID still the same, But I still don't know if PNPDeviceID unique across all machines (I mean the same as MAC address).

Upvotes: 3

Views: 2571

Answers (1)

vcsjones
vcsjones

Reputation: 141668

Is PNPDeviceID of video card adapter unique across all machines?

No. Essentially what this string is comprised of is

<Bus>\<Device ID>\<Instance ID>

The Instance ID is only unique within the context of the current system, and it may not even be unique for the whole system, only for the device's bus.

That is, if you have two identical video cards installed in the computer, they will have the same Device ID, but different Instance ID.

A graphics card driver might use its own serial number in the Instance ID. So it is possible that Instance ID is globally unique, but WMI cannot make that guarantee for all PNP devices.

At this point you will likely have to use a per-vendor documented way to determine the device's serial number, if at all possible.

Upvotes: 3

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