The Ping.exe utility is often one of the first command-line utilities admins turn to when troubleshooting Windows 9x TCP/IP networks. Like sonar, it returns a reply when it hits its target.
Given an IP address, however, you can also use the Ping utility to return the TCP/IP host name of the Windows computer you’re tracing.
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Add the -a switch to the command line as shown in the example below. If the host name is returnable, it will also return this potentially valuable information in the reply.
F:\>ping -a 169.254.4.1
Pinging CKWIN95 [169.254.4.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 169.254.4.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=128
Reply from 169.254.4.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 169.254.4.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 169.254.4.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Ping statistics for 169.254.4.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 10ms, Average = 2ms
By default, this host name is the same as the computer name you give the computer when you install Windows 9x. However, you can change the host name in the TCP/IP Properties pages in the Network applet of Control Panel.
