Keep serial number information when reinstall Hackintosh?

[nvmnghia]

I saw that my iPhone doesn't recognize my Hackintosh when I last reinstall Mojave, forcing me to resync the iTunes library. I was about to enter the key for Paragon and suddenly that fact dawned on me. Maybe the software doesn't recognize my machine anymore, maybe it will not activate and I lost my 20$. Can it be true, and if so, how to generally protect/maintain/keep this machine-specific information, so that I can reinstall my software after I reinstall Hackintosh?

 

[jaymonkey]

I saw that my iPhone doesn't recognize my Hackintosh when I last reinstall Mojave, forcing me to resync the iTunes library. I was about to enter the key for Paragon and suddenly that fact dawned on me. Maybe the software doesn't recognize my machine anymore, maybe it will not activate and I lost my 20$. Can it be true, and if so, how to generally protect/maintain/keep this machine-specific information, so that I can reinstall my software after I reinstall Hackintosh?

@nvmnghia,

Some software developers register a license against a specific machine by creating a key where the S/N or MLB is used as part of the seed value, the key is then stored on their license server and used to ensure a license is only used on a specific machine.

All the critical SystemID's are stored in Clovers config.plist ... if you reinstall macOS you should really reuse the same SMBIOS, S/N, MLB, ROM .. etc. that way any software that was registered against it will still work.

If your going to change the SMBIOS type and thus some SystemID's then you need to unregister the software first, make the changes and re-register.

In my experience only developers of expensive software tend to use this form of license restriction, such as Adobe or Corel, cheeper software tends to be registered against a user id.

Cheers
Jay

 

[nvmnghia]

@nvmnghia,

Some software developers register a license against a specific machine by creating a key where the S/N or MLB is used as part of the seed value, the key is then stored on their license server and used to ensure a license is only used on a specific machine.

All the critical SystemID's are stored in Clovers config.plist ... if you reinstall macOS you should really reuse the same SMBIOS, S/N, MLB, ROM .. etc. that way any software that was registered against it will still work.

Cheers
Jay

Thanks for your reply. Is there a complete list of such things to save? I'm planning to install Catalina, and the config.plist is not reusable somehow. I have to start fresh just to get it boot.

I think this problem deserves a dedicated post somewhere, maybe in this General Help box. Or did I miss that post?

 

[jaymonkey]

Thanks for your reply. Is there a complete list of such things to save? I'm planning to install Catalina, and the config.plist is not reusable somehow. I have to start fresh just to get it boot.

@nvmnghia

If your not able to reuse the config.plist then make a note of the values from the SMBIOS and RT Variables section of your config.plist. Be aware that you can only re-use the values if you use the same SMBIOS type (eg iMac15,1). If you use a different SMBIOS then you will have to generate a new set of SystemID's such as S/N, MLB .. etc. As the S/N is tied to the model type and MLB is tied to parts of the S/N.

If you want to understand how the S/N is tied to other critical systemID's have a look at section 4.1 of this guide :-

How to Fix iMessage

Guide: How to Fix iMessage Version 2.1 OSX & AppleID Configuration Version 1.0 - Public Release: 30th September 2013 Version 2.0 - Public Release: 25th February 2015 Version 2.1 - Reformatted for new site framework: May 2017 More Info iMessage Status: GREEN (iMessage is working with...

www.tonymacx86.com

Cheers
Jay

 

[nvmnghia]

Thanks!