Test communication with remote computer and check its online status over the Internet with free visual Ping tool for Windows.
What did your mom do when you got sick as a kid? Most probably the first thing she did was giving you a thermometer to check your body heat. If you are trying to access a remote computer and are not getting a response, chances are that computer is not functioning properly. In other words, it might be sick. But how would you give a thermometer to that PC?
There is a free tool called ping.exe that comes with most versions of Windows. You can use this tool to poke the remote PC and check its response. To use ping.exe, you would typically invoke a command line, which would open a black console window, and type ping.exe followed with IP address of the computer you want to check. Usually you would get a response right in the console window in a matter of seconds. You would judge – or, rather, guess, – the remote computer’s health by the cryptic numbers printed as decimal integers. If the remote computer is not available, or if the network is not available, or if some link or a piece of hardware in between you and the remote PC...