[kyle_denney]

I am trying to get Windows Product Key for an app that gets general computer information for computer technicians who are working remotely or locally for any size corporation. I found this code online but have run into a snag. When I try and run it the hex buffer on the first loop in the code below states that I cannot cast an integer to an array. Any ideas on how to fix this given the code or is there a better way of getting the Windows Product Key? Thank you!

im HexBuf As Object = My.Computer.Registry.GetValue(KeyPath, ValueName, 0)

        If HexBuf Is Nothing Then Return "N/A"

        Dim tmp As String = ""

        For l As Integer = LBound(HexBuf) To UBound(HexBuf)
            tmp = tmp & " " & Hex(HexBuf(l))
        Next

        Dim StartOffset As Integer = 52
        Dim EndOffset As Integer = 67
        Dim Digits(24) As String

        Digits(0) = "B" : Digits(1) = "C" : Digits(2) = "D" : Digits(3) = "F"
        Digits(4) = "G" : Digits(5) = "H" : Digits(6) = "J" : Digits(7) = "K"
        Digits(8) = "M" : Digits(9) = "P" : Digits(10) = "Q" : Digits(11) = "R"
        Digits(12) = "T" : Digits(13) = "V" : Digits(14) = "W" : Digits(15) = "X"
        Digits(16) = "Y" : Digits(17) = "2" : Digits(18) = "3" : Digits(19) = "4"
        Digits(20) = "6" : Digits(21) = "7" : Digits(22) = "8" : Digits(23) = "9"

        Dim dLen As Integer = 29
        Dim sLen As Integer = 15
        Dim HexDigitalPID(15) As String
        Dim Des(30) As String

        Dim tmp2 As String = ""

        For i = StartOffset To EndOffset
            HexDigitalPID(i - StartOffset) = HexBuf(i)
            tmp2 = tmp2 & " " & Hex(HexDigitalPID(i - StartOffset))
        Next

        Dim KEYSTRING As String = ""

        For i As Integer = dLen - 1 To 0 Step -1
            If ((i + 1) Mod 6) = 0 Then
                Des(i) = "-"
                KEYSTRING = KEYSTRING & "-"
            Else
                Dim HN As Integer = 0
                For N As Integer = (sLen - 1) To 0 Step -1
                    Dim Value As Integer = ((HN * 2 ^ 8) Or HexDigitalPID(N))
                    HexDigitalPID(N) = Value \ 24
                    HN = (Value Mod 24)

                Next

                Des(i) = Digits(HN)
                KEYSTRING = KEYSTRING & Digits(HN)
            End If
        Next

        Return StrReverse(KEYSTRING)

    End Function

[tlhIn`toq]

Quote

I cannot cast an integer to an array.

You can't. Do you know what an array is? Its a COLLECTION of some type.

So you can't cast an int to an array, but you could store an individual int in one element of an int[]

In other words

int[] anIntegerArray = 5; // Doesn't make sense. 
anIntegerArray[4] = 5; // Makes sense.  Element 4 of the array can be set equal to the value 5

This post has been edited by tlhIn`toq: 25 August 2012 - 03:05 PM

[kyle_denney]

tlhIn`toq, on 25 August 2012 - 03:05 PM, said:

Quote

I cannot cast an integer to an array.

You can't. Do you know what an array is? Its a COLLECTION of some type.

So you can't cast an int to an array, but you could store an individual int in one element of an int[]

In other words

int[] anIntegerArray = 5; // Doesn't make sense. 
anIntegerArray[4] = 5; // Makes sense.  Element 4 of the array can be set equal to the value 5

Can you apply that to my code and show me how it works? I am interested in learning but I am not sure how to apply the code to the code I found. Thanks!

[macosxnerd101]

No. It's your job to put in the effort to fix your code based on the suggestions given.

[tlhIn`toq]

If you are THAT unfamiliar then you are jumping into the designing and building of your own application from scratch, WAY too early.

First learn the language by working 2-5 "Learn C# in 30 days" type books cover to cover. Do a couple hundred on-line tutorial projects where you build what you're told to build, the way you are told to build it WITH AN EXPLANATION OF WHY so you can learn.

Then later you can start architecting your own simple stuff. Build a calculator. Build a DVD library program. Etc. Stuff that doesn't involve the complexity of a game. Then move up to games.



There are three routes people seem to take when learning programming.

• Just start trying to create programs
  
• Start taking apart other programs and try to figure out the language by reverse engineering
  
• Follow a guided learning course (school or self-teaching books)

For the life of me I can't figure out why people try 1 & 2. I strongly suggest taking the guided learning approach. Those book authors go in a certain order for a reason: They know what they're doing and they know the best order to learn the materials.

Quote

Where do I start?

You start by learning a coding language FIRST.
Learn to plan before you type.
THEN you start designing software with a purpose.


If this sounds like you

Newbie/Rookie said:

I have a little programming experience but I need to write ...

read this section

Spoiler

You need to start there. I can't say "I have little experience in speaking Russian, but I have been assigned to write a mystery novel in Russian. Can you help me?"

We can help you by saying "First learn basic programming and the language of C#. Then take on assignments." Could someone here write this program for you? Sure. Could someone here map out all the processes you need to follow and do the Software Design part of this in the slim hope you could code it from there? Sure. But we don't volunteer to do the job that you're either getting paid for, or getting a grade for. You may want to read this.

For now, just work on the lessons. Do a self-teaching book from cover to cover. Then consider writing a program.

Don't try to create a useful working program to fit a need of yours (or a for-pay contract) as your introduction to coding project. When you are learning to code you don't know enough to code a program, let alone know how to engineer the architecture of a program. It would be like saying "I don't know how to read sheet music, or play an instrument. I think I'll write a 3 act opera as my first learning experience."

I don't say this to be mean. We've seen lots of new coders take this approach and we know it doesn't work. Trying to design your own programs before you understand the basics of the code language you've chosen just leads to problems, frustrations, and 'swiss-cheese' education (lots of holes).

Otherwise, you can just jump to the resources here:
Some of the tutorials below are for C# or Java not C, C++, VB.NET [...]. But the conceptual stuff of classes, object oriented design, events etc. are not language specific and should give you enough guidance in theory of program development for you to be able to look-up specific code example in your chosen coding language.

---

Resources, references and suggestions for new programmers. - Updated Mar 2012

---

Spoiler

Quote

I already have a background in programming from this other software/technology/lanugage so I don't think I need to do tutorials

Here's how I look at doing tutorials even if one has a coding background that makes one think they don't need to do tutorials:

• If one's background really is enough to not need the tutorials, then they won't take long - So what's the harm?
  
• If the tutorials do take a while, then it might be time to re-think how much of one's old experience really applies to the new technology.
  
• There's no down-side. Every tutorial/series teaches something in a new way. Maybe you pick up a neat trick or a different approach to something that you already knew.

The stages of asking for homework help on a forum



But honestly, just typing away and seeing what pops up in Intellisense is going to make your self-education take 20 years. You can learn by trying to reverse engineer the language through banging on the keyboard experimentation - or you can learn by doing the tutorials and following a good "How to learn C#" book. There are so many great "How do I build my first application" tutorials on the web... There are dozens of "Learn C# in 21 days", "My first C# program" type books at your local book seller or even public library.

Beginner:

Java

Spoiler

Best beginner books
Reading and writting a file in Java

C#

Spoiler

C# Reading list by Eric Lipert

C# Fundamentals: Development for absolute beginners (video series)
Build a Program Now! in Visual C# by Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2542-5 is a terrific book that has you build a Windows Forms application, a WPF app, a database application, your own web browser.

Martyr2's mega project ideas list is a great place to start on developmental projectst that you can learn from; rather than trying to make something complex like a game as a self-teaching tool {that never works for anyone}

Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcuts

D.I.C. C# Resource page Start here
Intro to C# online tutorial then here...
C# control structures then here.
MSDN Beginner Developer video series
MSDN video on OOP principals, making classes, constructors, accessors and method overloading
MSDN Top guideline violations, know what to avoid before you do it.
Design patterns as diagrams

I hate sending people to another site when we have such good tutorials here, but this series shouldn't be overlooked.
Programming OOP in C# - Part 1
Programming OOP in C# - Part 2
Programming OOP in C# - Part 3
Programming OOP in C# - Part 4
Programming OOP in C# - Part 5

Writing a text file is always one of the first things people want to do, in order to store data like high-scores, preferences and so on.
Writing a text file tutorial.
Reading a text file tutorial.
.Split()ing a string

Have you seen the 500+ MSDN Code Samples? They spent a lot of time creating samples and demos. It seems a shame to not use them.

Intermediate:
Microsoft Events (webcasts and podcasts)
The tutorials below walk through making an application including inheritance, custom events and custom controls, object serialization and more.
Quick and easy custom events
Bulding an application - Part 1
Building an application - Part 2
Separating data from GUI - PLUS - serializing the data to XML
WPF version (WPF-MVVM data binding)
Passing values between forms/classes
Decouple your multi-threaded work from the GUI so forms don't hang

Working with environmental variables
'Why do we use delegates?' thread
And everyone always wants to connect to a database, right out of the gate so Database tutorials right here on DIC

C# Cookbooks
Are a great place to get good code, broken down by need, written by coding professionals. You can use the code as-is, but take the time to actually study it. These professionals write in a certain style for a reason developed by years of experience and heartache.

Everyone:
Debugging tutorial
Debugging tips
Debugging in detail
Great debugging tips
It still doesn't work, article

I urge you to work through the C# learning series here on DIC, and to work a self-teaching book from cover to cover before you even think about designing your own applications.
Microsoft Visual Studio Tips, 251 ways to improve your productivity, Microsoft press, ISBN 0-7356-2640-5 Has many, many great, real-world tips that I use all the time.

These are just good every-day references to put in your bookmarks.
MSDN C# Developers Center with tutorials
Welcome to Visual Studio
Free editions of Visual Studio 2010
Student editions of Visual Studio


Windows Presentation Foundation:
Create Animations Programmatically

Some of my common tips (some may apply more than others to your specific style):

• You have to program as if everything breaks, nothing works, the cyberworld is not perfect, the attached hardware is flakey, the network is slow and unreliable, the harddrive is about to fail, every method will return an error and every user will do their best to break your software. Confirm everything. Range check every value. Make no assumptions or presumptions.
  
  
• Take the extra 3 seconds to rename your controls each time you drag them onto a form. The default names of button1, button2... button54 aren't very helpful. If you rename them right away to something like btnOk, btnCancel, btnSend etc. it helps tremendously when you make the methods for them because they are named after the button by the designer.btnSend_Click(object sender, eventargs e) is a lot easier to maintain than button1_click(object sender, eventargs e)
  
  
• You aren't paying for variable names by the byte. So instead of variables names of a, b, c go ahead and use meaningful names like index, timeOut, row, column and so on. You should avoid 'T' for the timer. Amongst other things 'T' is commonly used throughout C# for Type and this will lead to problems. There are naming guidelines you should follow so your code confirms to industry standards. It makes life much easier on everyone around you, including those of us here to help. If you start using the standards from the beginning you don't have to retrain yourself later.
  You might want to look at some of the naming guidelines. Its a lot easier to start with good habits than to break bad habits later and re-learn.
  
  
  • Guidelines for names
    
  • Naming guidelines
    
  • Design guidelines for classes
  
  
  
• Try to avoid having work actually take place in GUI control event handlers. It is better to have the GUI handler call other methods so those methods can be reused and make the code more readable. This is also how you can send parameters rather than use excessive global variables. Get in this habit even if you are using WinForms because WPF works a lot under the idea of "commands" and this will get you working towards that. Think of each gester, control click, menu option etc. as a command to do something such as a command to SAVE. It doesn't matter where the command comes from, all sources should point at the same target to do the actual saving.
  
  Spoiler

  
  

  // All of this different triggering mechinisms call the same single [il]SavePreferences()[/il] method
  
  btnSave(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences(preferencesPath);
  }
  
  <KeyboardShortcut control+s bound to save>
  <Touchscreen guesture swiping from lowerleft to upperright bound to save>
  
  SaveMenuItem(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences(@"C:\prefs\test.txt");
  }
  
  SaveContextMenu(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();// No parameter method overload
  }
  
  FormMain_Closing(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      if (IsDirty) SavePreferences();
  }
  

  
  
  
• Don't replace lines of code that don't work. Instead comment them out and put your new attemps below that. This will keep you from re-trying the same ideas over and over. Also, when you come back to us saying "I've tried this 100 different ways and still can't get it", we can actually see what you tried. So often a failed attempt is very very close and just needs a little nudge in the right direction. So if we can say "See what you did in attempt 3... blah blah" it helps a lot
  
  
  Spoiler

  // Try #1 - May 1, 0900hrs
  //    code
  //    code  
  //    code
  // Try #2 - May 2, 1700hrs   Okay, plan B.  What if I do it *this* way
  //    code
  //    code  
  //    code
  // Try #14 - May 3, 0500hrs after 5 cans of RedBull.  Maybe I should get some sleep. I can't think of anything else but this last idea
      code
      code  
      code
  
  

  
  If you are using Visual Studio you can select a block of lines and hit control+k control+c (Kode Comment) to comment it out. control+k control+u (Kode Uncomment) to uncomment a selected block.
  
  
  
• I strongly suggest installing VMware or some other virtualization technology on your development PC so you can create a couple virtual computers for testing. This would allow you to debug and test inside: WinXP32, XP64, Vista, Win7x32, Win7x64... etc. without having to actually have 5 physical PC's. Visual Studio will let you send the debug directly into one of these virtual machines so you can watch it operate, check its variables, see the crashes and so on just as if it were debugging on your real machine.
  
  
• This can't be stressed enough in today's world of cell phone messaging:
  Don't use txt/sms/leet/T9 speak like: u no, u r, dnt, wut i m do-n, coz, al gud, b4, ny1, sum1, please and so on like this guy:
  
  
  Spoiler

  dis not b d'hood dawg... You are sitting at a real keyboard with a real monitor, not a cell phone. You are not here texting your high school posse to come to your kegger after their shift at Taco Bell. You are here asking for help from senior coding professionals who graciously donate their valuable time to helping the next generation of coders with their chosen craft. Please try to show them, yourself and the industry some respect by writing at least at an eighth grade level. (IE: English not ebonics or SMS, real words, punctuation and so on). If you can't take your own problem/question seriously enough to write like an adult, then why would you expect anyone else to take it seriously?
  
  When you write a post you are presenting yourself. Your writing style is all you have to show others who you are and what you stand for. When I see posts filled with lack of capitalization, SMS text like 'Urself', lack of punctuation and so on; what I see is someone who just doesn't care to make even an eighth grade presentation of themselves. I also see that you feel we are not worth the effort. Posts that look like this show that you don't feel the person you are talking to is worth speaking to as an adult. If you show this level of contempt or apathy towards someone you are asking for help how can you expect to be taken seriously or expect to receive that expert's fullest attention and time to help you?

[lucky3]

Couldn't agree more with what tlhIn`toq wrote.

[motcom]

lol.. the original poster had this in vb.. now hes going c# as per suggestion...

[kyle_denney]

Thank you for all the suggestions. I do realize that having a structured learning environment is really helpful. I am currently going for my associate's degree in programming. It is not that I do not understand an array and how an array works, however, I was not sure how to fix the issue at hand. I found the code online for pulling a MS Product Key and noticed when I moved it to the IDE it was broken. I did not develop the code from scratch and therefore was not sure how to fix it. Visual Studio is notorious for giving minimal details on why something in the debugger is broken and you have to go on a rabbit trail sometimes to get to the real issue.

By the way, I do not have a problem with approaches 1 & 2 as well as 3. I have done all of them and they all have proven useful. You gain structural knowledge of programming through a school or book - however you gain a passion for programming because that is what you want to do and that is where I found myself.

[tlhIn`toq]

kyle_denney, on 30 August 2012 - 06:15 AM, said:

I am currently going for my associate's degree in programming. It is not that I do not understand an array and how an array works, however, I was not sure how to fix the issue at hand.

That you are *going for* your degree is one thing. But it doesn't tell us how far you have already gone. It sounds nice, but means little. For all we know you could be on your third day of going for that degree which means you know next to nothing.

You say you understand what an array is and how it works... yet you couldn't figure out how to fix your code when you were trying to shove something other than an array into an array. Let me put it in non-coding terms. You had an engine and you were trying to state that it was a truck. That wouldn't work, would it. An engine is only PART of a truck.

Quote

Visual Studio is notorious for giving minimal details on why something in the debugger is broken and you have to go on a rabbit trail sometimes to get to the real issue.

Really? Notorious amongst whom? Your fellow first year students? Because I find it tells you exactly what is wrong. It doesn't stand up and give a lecture about why and put it into context for you with an explanation about the 25 lines of code around it. It doesn't tell telepathically intuit what you MEANT and tell you how to fix it based on your INTENT. But it does tell you exactly what the error is. And in this case it did tell you the exact problem, stopped on the offending line and said "cannot cast an integer to an array". If you don't know how to use the IDE and don't know how to look at the values in the Autos and Locals pallet, you can't blame Visual Studio. If you look at the offending line and see that one value is an integer, one is an array... look at the error... use the knowledge you have about arrays... it should be fairly clear.

Perhaps you should stop coding for an hour and work these tutorials on debugging. An hour of learning will save hundreds in frustration.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions - Updated July 2012

• Q: I do x and y happens which I didn't expect but I don't know how to figure out why. How do I debug and find my problem?
  A:
  • Debugging video 1: Breakpoints and Local variables
    
  • Debugging video 2: Advanced breakpoints
    
  • Debugging tutorial
    
  • Debugging tips
    
  • Debugging in detail
    
  • Great debugging tips
    
  • It still doesn't work, article
    
  • Debugging tools survival guide
    
  • Video: Tips & Tricks to use Visual Studio to the fullest
    
    
    
  • 5 return dataset.Tables[tableName].Columns.Count;
    A condensed line like this makes a lot of assuptions that everything goes right, and gives you nothing to check or debug.
    
    If only for R&D / Debug purposes it can often be advantagous to break down the line
    
    

    if (dataset != null)
    {
       if (datase.Tables != null)
       {
          if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(tableName)
          {
             if (dataset.Tables[tableName].Columns != null)
    

    
    
    Now you can put a breakpoint on the top line and walk through it with F10 and check every object. You also don't try to manipulate a thing that doesn't yet exist.

[kyle_denney]

Does anyone know how to get the WIndows 8 product key? The digitalproductid in the registry no longer exists for Windows 8.

This post has been edited by JackOfAllTrades: 30 June 2013 - 12:23 PM
Reason for edit:: Removed unnecessary quote