What is GUID

GUID stands for Globally Unique Identifier.

GUID is the Microsoft implementation of the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) Universally Unique Identifier(UUID).

A GUID is a 128-bit value consisting of one group of 8 hexadecimal digits, followed by three groups of 4 hexadecimal digits each, followed by one group of 12 hexadecimal digits.

The following example GUID shows the groupings of hexadecimal digits in a GUID:

6A35C390D0E4403F85C23593D7218AE9

According to Microsoft’s article GUID Structure :

There are four parts of GUID

  

    Part 1: Specifies the first 8 hexadecimal digits of the GUID.

    Part 2: Specifies the first group of 4 hexadecimal digits.    

    Part 3: Specifies the second group of 4 hexadecimal digits. 

    Part 4: Array of 8 bytes. The first 2 bytes contain the third group 
                of 4 hexadecimal digits. The remaining 6 bytes contain the 
                final 12 hexadecimal digits.

There are 2 ^ 128 possible GUIDs which is equivalent to approximately 40 Billion Billion Billion for every person on earth.