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July 16, 2007
For Immediate Release
For more information contact:
Software Institutehttp://www.softinsti tute.com/
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Test communication with remote computer and determine which route the packets travelacross an IP network between your PC and the remote host.
If you cannot connect to a certain computer over a network, there might be somethingwrong with the remote computer or with your Internet connection. Or maybe yourrouter needs a reset. Or your Internet provider could be having a temporarilyproblem that they ll surely solve, telling you to please be patient and don t bothercalling. Or maybe it s the fault of one of the routers, switches, access points,servers, or other network hosts that are in between you and the remote computer. Howwould you know for sure?
In the beginning of the Internet, a tool called traceroute was introduced in Unix.Traceroute does exactly what its name suggests: it traces the route of IP packetswhile they travel from your PC to the remote destination. The tool essentiallyallows you to see exactly where the connectivity problem is, no matter how far it isfrom your computer. The last host to respond to traceroute is the last host that isworking properly. The first one that fails to respond is the faulty one.
There is a free tool called tracert.exe that comes with most versions of Windows.You can use this tool to traceroute the remote PC. To use tracert.exe, you wouldtypically invoke a command line, which would open a black console window, and typetracert.exe followed with IP address of the computer you want to check. Usually youwould get a response right in the console window in a matter of seconds. You get theresponse in a Spartan-looking black console window.
While there s nothing particularly wrong in using the supplied tracert.exe, we atSoft Institute wrapped the same thing into a much more convenient package. SI Traceprovides clearly legible, well formatted output by providing easy to understandnumbers and well explained results. It displays all the vital information fromclassic Unix traceroute and Windows tracert commands, and allows you to check morethan one computer by simply selecting their address from a combo box. Thanks to itsuser-friendly, convenient user interface, SI Trace is much more convenient to usethan Windows tracert.exe.
SI Trace is part of Soft Institute s line of network tools, and integrates well withother products, such as SI Ping and SI Lookup. You can simply click on an IP addressor Web name of any host that is pinged or traced in order to get information aboutthe owner and location of that host.
SoftInstitute releases well-designed, simple to use products that help computerusers solve one particular problem. Our products are free, and typically performjust one task, such as ping, traceroute, whois or lookup, but do it in a convenientmanner.
