Machine ID Change

[florida99]

Powered up a pc that I use everyday with NT 7 which has a custom indicator. Got a message that the custom indicator wasn't licensed. Checked the Machine ID and noticed it had changed from earlier this morning. (pc powered down and then restarted later) Searched previous posts and found http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/f...machine+change

neither the mb or bios was changed, however about a month ago I did add a Patriot 32GB USB drive and configured it for ReadyBoost. That is the only change to the pc. What would have caused the machine ID to change?

Thanks in advance

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Hello,

This is a Microsoft value. Unfortunately I do not know what magic they do to come up with the machine ID. Other then it can change and will change when hardware changes are done.


Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

[florida99]

Thank you Brett

[florida99]

After having the machine ID unexpectedly change as posted earlier, I encountered something even more strange this evening. I contacted the custom indicator provider I use and they kindly changed my machine id to the new one. Later this evening, I powered pc on and tried opening NT7. Didn't load and of course any further attempt to start program, message is 2nd instance, etc. I opened task manager and stopped the application NT.exe and reboot.

System powers up, NT 7 loads and I open a workspace with charts and received a message that the custom indicator license is expired for machine id xxxxxxxxxxx.

I check the machine ID and it reverted to the original machine ID I had before it changed eralier today. As mentioned, about a month ago I installed a USB drive enabled for ready boost and do not remove it from machine at all. No other hardware or software changes and this machine is used daily for NT7 and trading.

Any thoughts? How would I go about determining how the machine id is created, and what is causing it to change, contact Microsoft? (it's a pc, Win7 Pro 64 bit, AMD quad core, 8 gb mem) Thanks

[bukkan]

most probably its due to the usb dongle. it changes the mac address each time you start you pc. dont know whether NT uses the mac address, but i have faced this issue (different application though which uses mac address).

[florida99]

Thanks bukkan. I'm going to post a little more than necessary for anyone searching threads later.
Apparently the Machine ID is created by Windows and I believe it's a security measure. I was researching what could go into creating the Machine ID and found the mac address could be used as part (as well as cpu id and hdd s/n among other things, also mentioned was motherboard and bios) and was arriving at the same conclusion you mentioned or something closely related. One thing I didn't mention and just remembered, while the pc was booting I noticed the Network connection icon in the system tray had the Win 7 version of the hourglass. Although I use a wired connection, it caught my eye that it was taking awhile for the network connection to establish. As I was waiting and working on something else, after a few moments, I caught a glimpse of a message in the system tray area as it was fading away indicating something was installed, ready for use and pc needed reboot. Didn't see what was installed and without thinking, I rebooted. That's when my problem started. I too was just thinking that it could either be the dongle or something else affected the mac address and then it reverted back.

NOTE added after the original posts for anyone researching machine id change posts in the future. My problem was caused by adding a USB dongle and leaving it attached to the machine during boot/shutdown. I believe if you were going to use a dongle, first boot, open NT and then insert the dongle so as not to change the boot configuration. I'd imagine same thing could happen with an external drive or anything else attached that changes the original boot configuration when the machine ID was first established.