Documentation/application clarification request - Regarding TongFang Utility

[EricHemingway]

When using the Tongfang Utility a serial number (as well as MBR, etc) was generated. It is unclear if this serial number is unique (randomly generated) or is it always defaulted with the same info. (There is a chance that it is reading it from my previous Clover build as well which was based on version of this site about 18 months ago).

In any case, to be safe I generated a new serial using MacSerial and have checked several of the generated Serial number against "Apple Warranty Coverage" website. The result is that I now have both an Invalid Serial Number as well as a Valid Serial Number (where Purchase Date still needs to be verified).

The problem is that OpenCore documentation is unclear about whether to use the Invalid Serial Number or the Valid Serial Number. I found many conversations about this and could not find any consensus of opinion of which one should be used.

Could you please shed some light on which type of serial is recommended for this install?

To be clear, I am mainly entering this as an issue simply because I think it may be worthwhile to update the basic tutorial regarding how much (if any) serial number validations are done by the TongFang Utility and consequently what is left for the user to do regarding generating a Serial and implementing it (since it is required for iMessage and other apps to work correctly).

The OpenCore tutorial is a bit overwhelming to wade through (and somewhat redundant) since most of the steps are actually handled by the TongFang Utility... though it is a good source of knowledge for certain. However, and more importantly, it is not exactly clear what is left for the user to resolve either before or after running the TongFang Utility. To phrase it another way: OpenCore gives a great amount of detail, however, many of the procedures are simply not necessary as they are completely handled by the TongFang Utility.

So the issue is there is a lack of clarity about what is NOT handled by the utility (perhaps serial numbers?) and thus what steps are remaining for the user post-install.

I hope that makes sense.

In anycase thank you for making such a wonderful utility... it is really an amazing time saver. I just want to make sure I am finishing my build correctly and not missing any additional post-install steps.

[kirainmoe]

When using the Tongfang Utility a serial number (as well as MBR, etc) was generated. It is unclear if this serial number is unique (randomly generated) or is it always defaulted with the same info.

If you are using Tongfang Utility on macOS, the app will read SN/MLB/SmUUID from current system, i.e. it will preserve the SMBIOS info that you are using to boot the current system. That explains why "There is a chance that it is reading it from my previous Clover build as well which was based on version of this site about 18 months ago".

Of course you can manually generate a group of new SN/MLB/SmUUID in the app, or change it to what you already have when generating config. And if Tongfang Utility is running on Windows, it will only preserve SmUUID and randomly generate SN/MLB because on Windows the only thing we can know about is the UUID, and using a different SmUUID to boot Windows will cause the activation lost.

The problem is that OpenCore documentation is unclear about whether to use the Invalid Serial Number or the Valid Serial Number. I found many conversations about this and could not find any consensus of opinion of which one should be used.

DO NOT USE THE SERIAL NUMBER THAT CAN PASS THE COVERAGE CHECK. i.e. you should use a serial number that Apple Coverage Check returns "We’re sorry, but this serial number isn’t valid. Please check your information and try again.".

To be clear, I am mainly entering this as an issue simply because I think it may be worthwhile to update the basic tutorial regarding how much (if any) serial number validations are done by the TongFang Utility and consequently what is left for the user to do regarding generating a Serial and implementing it..

Tongfang Utility uses macserial to generate SN/MLB. There is nothing special except the preservation policy described above in the process, comparing to macserail.

So the issue is there is a lack of clarity about what is NOT handled by the utility (perhaps serial numbers?) and thus what steps are remaining for the user post-install.

Well, Tongfang Utility only provides a simple way to generate the EFI config for those users who are new to hackintosh. Theoretically there is nothing to do after generate a config. If you want to know more detail about the config, just read the comments in the config.plist. You know that OpenCore config is so complicated and to explain how every option works is also a hard work.

[EricHemingway]

That completely answers my questions and it is all good to know…thank you very much for the clarification.

Opencore is really in depth, which is good for understanding, but I was just unclear on what the TongFang utility handles and what must be done manually. Your replies clears it up nicely…thank you for the clarification. Great to know that the utility pretty much handles all of the Opencore nuances/steps right out of the box (with just multi-boots being an additional process).

Nice to know that Tongfang uses macserial and also generates an invalid serial (I did not know there was an automated way to verify that a serial was invalid without manually going to Apple’s Support website since macserial can generate valid serials as well (due to the fact that the serial numbers generated are pseudo-random).

While I do think adding the clarifications above to the landing page of the Tongfang project would be incredibly helpful to people, that is just my totally subjective opinion. So I totally understand if you don’t want to make the landing page overly verbose. However, the serial generating is a critical part of the hackintosh setup so knowing how much Tongfang handles for you is a great help in putting people’s minds at ease.

If you did want to add a short paragraph about the issues I think something as simple as this would be more than sufficient:

“When correctly configured (by answering the simple prompts about your system and adding the directories to your EFI partition), the tongfang utility will create a perfectly valid and ready to run environment built on top of (and including) OpenCore. In addition, the Tongfang utility also incorporates the MacSerial functionality to randomly generate system and serial number identifiers, unless your system already has them defined, in which case they will be copied.

However, if you find you need additional parameters setup for non-stock or currently non-supported hardware, please refer to the OpenCore installation guide for an in depth breakdown of all the processes that were used to build the Tongfang utility to make additions to the generated EFI files.”

But again, including (something like) the above on the landing page is (of course) a subjective call.

Thanks again for this phenomenal utility (and support as well !)