Using the GetIDESerialNumber function under Windows Vista

Windows Vista's UAC is very aggressive. It blocks all programs that are running without elevated rights from accessing critical areas (kernel level binaries, system folders, registry, hardware, etc). One of the functions exported by Hardware ID Extractor DLL needs to access the disk at low level. So, in some conditions Vista UAC may block the program from doing so.

To solve this, you can:

• add a Vista manifest (see Delphi Vista manifest component) to your application to make the program more compatible with Vista
• specifically ask for temporary elevation
• access the hardware during software installation as Windows automatically elevates the rights of a program during Setup
• don't use that particular function. The rest will work without problems so you can use the CPU ID instead of HDD ID.
• hope that the user has the UAC disabled or run under elevated (admin) account. Many users (especially the advanced ones) are actually doing it.
• use the HDD ID only if the program can run with elevated rights.
• use the GetPartitionID unique identifier instead
  

HINT: You can access the HDD only once, retrieve the ID, and store it somewhere. This way you don't have to disturb the user every time it uses your program. Don't worry about asking the user the give elevated permissions to your program (ESPECIALLY during setup). Vista users are used with it. The nice and friendly Win XP is gone now.

Related words: Get disk serial, real hard drive serial number, hardware ID number, programming code, DLL library, extract hardware info, get CPU producer frequency and producer