EnumDisplayDevices vs WMI Win32_DesktopMonitor, how to detect active monitors?

Question

For my current C++ project I need to detect a unique string for every monitor that is connected and active on a large number of computers.

Research has pointed to 2

Answer 1

This is my current work-in-progress code for detecting the monitor device id, reliably.

CString DeviceID;
DISPLAY_DEVICE dd; 
dd.cb = sizeof(dd); 
DWORD dev = 0; 
// device index 
int id = 1; 
// monitor number, as used by Display Properties > Settings

while (EnumDisplayDevices(0, dev, &dd, 0))
{
    DISPLAY_DEVICE ddMon;
    ZeroMemory(&ddMon, sizeof(ddMon));
    ddMon.cb = sizeof(ddMon);
    DWORD devMon = 0;

    while (EnumDisplayDevices(dd.DeviceName, devMon, &ddMon, 0))
    {
        if (ddMon.StateFlags & DISPLAY_DEVICE_ACTIVE && 
                     !(ddMon.StateFlags & DISPLAY_DEVICE_MIRRORING_DRIVER))
        {
            DeviceID.Format (L"%s", ddMon.DeviceID);
            DeviceID = DeviceID.Mid (8, DeviceID.Find (L"\\", 9) - 8);
        }
        devMon++;

        ZeroMemory(&ddMon, sizeof(ddMon));
        ddMon.cb = sizeof(ddMon);
    }

    ZeroMemory(&dd, sizeof(dd));
    dd.cb = sizeof(dd);
    dev++; 
}