Remote MAC address on Windows

[J. Landman Gay]

Alex Tweedly wrote:
> allow a few seconds after the ping before trying it (should update 
> within one second unless there are some funny config changes on the 
> machine).
> 
> remember that it will not work on wifi networks, and will only work on a 
> simple LAN (i.e. no router between client and server)
> 
> remember it will not work properly in some (unusual) setups where all 
> traffic is directed through a router/DHCP server - usually identifiable 
> by multiple arp entries with the same MAC address for multiple IP 
> addresses (this is pretty obscure, but just possible)

That's bad news. It has to work on any network configuration.
> 
> and finally - because I just can't resist - why do you want to do this ?
> 
> answer off-list if you prefer - but I can think of a lot of reasons why 
> you should try to avoid knowing the MAC address of other machines .... 
> it can get you into deep trouble in some cases (e.g. proxy-ARP based 
> networks, or those where gratuitous ARPs are used to switch the Mac 
> address association, but there is no way to get these changes triggered 
> up to any application which has stored this info).

Then that's a problem too. My app creates a serial key that is 
registered to a specific machine. It won't run unless the MAC address 
the app is on matches the one that was stored on installation. This has 
worked fine for a couple of years, but now we have a situation where 
people on a network want to lanuch the app from the server. When that 
happens, the app (as it is now, using ipconfig) gets the MAC address of 
the local machine, which of course won't match, and the app refuses to 
run. So I need to retrieve the MAC address of the server the app is 
actually installed on, not the one on the local machine.

If there is no reliable way to get the server's MAC address, I have a 
problem.


-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com