Duplicate names problem solved on ERAS 5

[karlisi]

Installed and tested ERAS v.5 beta. At last they solved duplicate client names problem described here. Solution is very clever, if I correctly understand it. When client connects to ERAS and it's name already registered on ERAS but MAC address is different, server checks if this client have network card with MAC address already registered on server. If so, even if this network card is not connected to network, ERAS knows it's the same client and don't makes duplicate.

[Geosoft]

I always wondered why ESET wants to use the MAC address of the client computer, especially when virtual machines can have their MAC addresses reset at random.

Wouldn't it be easier to just generate a unique SID for the client based on the hardware, that way name changes wont be affected by the client? That way uninstall/reinstall of the client because of windows format wont affect the client SID, and any new computer purchases would have a unique SID.

I think this is what Windows generally does for its activation process.

[karlisi]

I think it's some legacy from times with hard encoded MAC addresses, one workgroup or domain per one admin with unique workstation names etc. Now they don't want to fully rewrite this identification part and trying such workarounds.