How to identify a HID after it's moved to a different port on Windows

Question

I'm on Windows and am trying to store calibration data for game controllers connected via USB and am trying to find a value which uniquely identifies them in a port independent way.

There is the HidD_GetSerialNumberString function but i've read here that it's uncommon for devices to have serial numbers and indeed when i try to read one fe from a PS4 controller HidD_GetSerialNumberString returns FALSE and GetLastError returns ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER .

Is there any other data available which can be accessed to achieve this?

Answer 1

You can try to use instance ID for your HID device (call CM_Get_Device_Interface_Property with device interface path and DEVPKEY_Device_InstanceId property and use string after last & char). It should be unique and persistent per system restarts. But it is not guaranteed if serial number is not provided (in this case instance ID will be different if device is plugged into different usb port)...

More info on this here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/56885175/1795050