Unix hostid and Windows

Question

Is there a Windows equivalent to the unix hostid?

http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl1_hostid.htm

Answer 1

Not really, at least not exactly. HostID was usually a way to lock a piece of software to a node. Even in the later days of Solaris you could easily change the HostID, making it less locked to hardware.

You could use the network MAC, which should be globally unique. But these are easily cloned

You can also try the CPUID

There have been similar questions answered on stackoverflow

Answer 2

The registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography has a value MachineGuid containing a randomly-generated GUID. This is static, but easily changeable.

Answer 3

You can install cygwin which comes with the hostid command.