Network Troubleshooting Tools
When the troubleshooters don't solve the problem, it might be time to dig deeper into the Windows toolbox. Windows 7 contains an assortment of utilities you can use to diagnose, monitor, and repair network connections . Table 19-1 lists some of the more useful networking-related command-line utilities and summarizes how you can use them .To learn more about each utility, including its proper syntax, in a Command Prompt window type the executable name followed by /?.
Table 19-1 Windows Network Utilities
Utility Name
What It's Used For
Get MAC Address (Getmac. exe)
Discovers the Media Access Control (MAC) address and lists associated network protocols for all network cards in a computer, either locally or across a network.
Hostname (Hostname, exe) Displays the host name of the current computer.
IP Configuration Utility (Ipconfig. exe)
Displays all current Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network configuration values, and refreshes Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and DNS settings.
Name Server Lookup (Nslookup . exe)
Displays information about Domain Name System records for specific IP addresses and/or host names so that you can troubleshoot DNS problems
Net services commands (Net. exe)
Performs a broad range of network tasks. Type net with no parameters to see a full list of available command-line options
Netstat (Netstat. exe)
Displays active TCP connections, ports on which the computer is listening, Ethernet statistics, the IP routing table, and IPv4/IPv6 statistics .
Displays or modifies the network configuration of a local or remote computer that is currently running This command-line scripting utility has a huge number of options, which are fully detailed in Help .
Combines the functions of Traceroute and Ping to identify problems at a router or network link
TCP/IP NetBIOS Information Displays statistics for the NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) (Nbtstat. exe) protocol, NetBIOS name tables for both the local computer and remote computers, and the NetBIOS name cache.
Network Command Shell (Netsh . exe)
PathPing (Pathping exe)
Verifies IP-level connectivity to another internet address by sending Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets and measuring response time in milliseconds .
TCP/IP Route (Route, exe) Displays and modifies entries in the local IP routing table.
TCP/IP Traceroute (Tracert. exe)
Determines the path to an internet address, and lists the time required to reach each hop . It's useful for troubleshooting connectivity problems on specific network segments
A more powerful tool is available as a free download from Microsoft Network Monitor is a protocol analyzer that lets you capture network traffic, view it, and analyze it. Download it at w7io.com/1906, and learn more about it on the Network Monitor blog at w7io.com/1907.
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