FAQs
|
|
|
 |
| If you have other
questions please visit our online support form to
forward your
support request. |
|
|
|
What is NetInfo and why do I need
it? NetInfo is a collection of 15 different
state-of-the-art network diagnostic tools on a single,
easy-to-use interface. Designed from first-hand
experience, NetInfo allows businesses to more effectively
combat network downtime by allowing network administrators,
webmasters, and Internet service providers to more
accurately isolate faults, simplify processing of
diagnostic data and increase internal network security.
If you routinely experience delays or bottlenecks
when surfing the Internet or your intranet, you
know how frustrating it can be. NetInfo analyzes
your connection and various aspects of the Internet
in order to isolate potential pitfalls. Once it
determines where the problem lies, NetInfo provides
you with a whole slew of tools that help you solve
it. If the problem lies beyond your realm of control
and you don't know who to contact about it,
NetInfo will give you a name, e-mail address and
phone number. With tools like Local Info, Connections,
Ping, Trace, Lookup, Finger, Whois, Daytime, Time,
Quote, HTML, Scanner, Services, E-mail, and Web
Center, you'll get in touch with your inner
NetAdmin geek.
What are the
system requirements for NetInfo?
- Windows Vista, Server 2008,
7, Server 2008 R2, 8, Server 2012, 10, and
Server 2016 (32-bit
or 64-bit versions).
- Internet Explorer 7 or later.
|
|
|
|
When I try to start NetInfo, I
get an error message about a missing OLEACC.DLL.
What do I do? This file is a component
of Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) library.
Probably you don't have MSAA installed, or the
installed version is outdated. To resolve this problem,
please do the following:
- Windows 98, Me, NT, and 2000.
Download and install the current MSAA version
2.0 from Microsoft.
When I try to start
NetInfo, I get an error box saying: "Unable
to load INETMIB1.DLL!". What do I do?
Probably Windows isn't correctly installed
on your computer. NetInfo needs inetmib1.dll and
snmpapi.dll to work. If the two files are of incompatible
versions or missing on the system then the above
error will be displayed. NetInfo will fail to start
because of this.
If both files are loaded on the system and an
incompatibility exists below is a working matrix
of the inetmib1.dll and snmpapi.dll files known
to work together:
|
inetmib1.dll
|
snmpapi.dll
|
|
3.51 |
4.00 |
|
5.00.1717.1 |
5.00.1717.1 |
|
5.00.1717.1 |
5.00.1662.1 |
Often times two snmpapi.dll files are installed
on the system and the wrong one will be loaded because
it is in the Windows\System directory which gets
checked first. You should do a find for the inetmib1.dll
file, highlight it, right click the mouse button
to select properties and then look at the version
tab to determine the version of the file. You should
then do a find on the snmpapi.dll file and do the
same to any files found. The file that isn't
compatible with the inetmib1.dll file should be
renamed or deleted. You can now start NetInfo. No
reboot is necessary.
If any of the files are missing, install Microsoft
Winsock, which should install the appropriate files.
Please contact NetInfo Support if the above workaround
doesn't resolve the problem.
Note: Third party Winsock can also cause this
problem. NetInfo only supports Microsoft Winsock.
When I try to
start NetInfo, it hangs at the information screen.
What do I do?Probably Active scripting
is disabled for your My Computer security zone.
This security zone is hidden by default on the Security
tab in the Internet Options dialog box. The Flags
value in the following registry key determines whether
you can view the My Computer security zone on the
Security tab in the Internet Options dialog box:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet
Settings\Zones\0
Setting the data value of the Flags value to
47 (in hexadecimal) causes the My Computer security
zone to be displayed. Setting the data value of
the Flags value to 21 (in hexadecimal) causes the
My Computer security zone to be hidden.
To enable NetInfo to run, you need to enable
Active Scripting. Please do the following:
- Start Internet Explorer.
- Select Internet Options from the Tools menu.
- Select My Computer on the Security tab.
- Press the Custom Level button.
- Enable Active scripting.
|
|
|
|
What is IP? (Internet
Protocol) The TCP/IP standard protocol that
defines the IP datagram as the unit of information
passed across an internet and provides the basis
for connectionless, best-effort packet delivery
service. IP includes the ICMP control and error
message protocol as an integral part.
What is TCP?
(Transmission Control Protocol) The TCP/IP
standard transport level protocol that provides
the reliable, full duplex, stream service on which
many application protocols depend. TCP allows a
process on one machine to send a stream of data
to a process on another. It is connection-oriented
in the sense that before transmitting data, participants
must establish a connection. Software implementing
TCP usually resides in the operating system and
uses the IP protocol to transmit information across
the underlying internet.
What is UDP?
(User Datagram Protocol) The TCP/IP standard
protocol that allows an application program on one
machine to send a datagram to an application program
on another machine. UDP uses the Internet Protocol
(IP) to deliver datagrams. Conceptually, the important
difference between UDP datagrams and IP datagrams
is that UDP includes a protocol port number, allowing
the sender to distinguish among multiple destinations
(application programs) on the remote machine. In
practice, UDP also includes a checksum over the
data being sent.
What is Winsock?
The Windows Sockets specification defines a network-programming
interface for Microsoft Windows, which is based
on the "socket" paradigm popularized in
the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) from the
University of California at Berkeley. It encompassed
both familiar Berkeley socket style routines and
a set of Windows-specific extensions designed to
allow the programmer to take advantage of message-driven
nature of Windows.
What is a socket?
The abstraction provided by Berkeley 4BSD UNIX
that allows an application program to access the
TCP/IP protocols. An application opens a socket,
specifies the service desired (e.g., reliable stream
delivery), binds the socket to a specific destination
and then sends or receives data.
What is a host?
Any (end-user) computer system that connected
to a network. Hosts range in size from personal
computers to supercomputers.
What is a gateway?
A special purpose, dedicated computer that attached
to two or more networks and routes packets from
one to the other. In particular, an IP gateway routes
IP datagrams among the networks to which it connects.
Gateways route packets to other gateways until they
can be delivered to the final destination directly
across one physical network.
|
|
|
|
What is the Local Info tab?
A network tool that lets you obtain information
about local host and currently active version of
the Windows Sockets. On Windows
Vista, 2008, 7, 2008 R2, 8, 2012, 10, and 2016 the Local Info
tool also reports full network adapter information
for the local computer.
You can use the Local Info tool to:
- Identify your computer on the network.
- Query your implementation of the Windows
Sockets to determine what basic information
is available.
What is a User name?
The name that identifies a user.
What is a Physical
address?
On a local area network (LAN) or other network,
the physical (MAC) address is your computer's
unique hardware number. (On an Ethernet LAN, it's
the same as your Ethernet address.) When you're
connected to the Internet from your computer (or
host as the Internet protocol thinks of it), a correspondence
table relates your IP address to your computer's
physical address on the LAN.
What is an IP address?
The 32-bit address assigned to hosts that want
to participate in a TCP/IP Internet. IP addresses
are the abstraction of physical hardware addresses
just as an internet is an abstraction of physical
networks. Actually assigned to the interconnection
of a host to a physical network, an IP address consists
of a network portion and a host portion. The partition
makes routing efficient.
What is the Winsock
version?
The version of the Windows Sockets specification
that the Windows Sockets DLL expects the caller
to use.
What is the
Winsock high version?
The highest version of the Windows Sockets specification
that this DLL can support (also encoded as above).
What is the
Winsock description?
A description of the Windows Sockets implementation,
including vendor identification.
What is the System
status?
Relevant status or configuration information
of the Windows Sockets.
What is Sockets?
The maximum number of sockets, which a single
process can potentially open.
What is the UDP size?
The size in bytes of the largest UDP datagram
that can be sent or received by a Windows Sockets
application.
|
|
|
|
What is the Connections tab?
A network tool that lets you obtain information
about current TCP/IP connections.
You can use the Connections tool to query detailed
listings of all TCP and UDP sockets on your system,
including the foreign address and state of TCP connections.
On Windows Vista, 2008, 7, 2008 R2, 8,
2012, 10, and 2016 the Connections tool also reports the name
of the process that owns each socket.
|
|
|
|
What is the Ping tab?
(Packet Internet Groper) A network tool that
lets you verify connectivity to a particular device
on your network. The term is now used like a verb
as in, "please ping host A to see if it is
alive."
You can use the Ping tool to:
- Ping a remote host to verify the network
connection is up.
- Ping a remote host and view the round trip
times to determine the current speed of the
network connection.
- Ping hosts along a route to isolate a hardware
or software problem. First, ping 127.0.0.1 (or
localhost) to verify the local network is up
and running. Then, ping hosts and gateways farther
and farther away.
What is a packet?
The unit of data sent across a packet switching
network.
What is RTT?
(Round Trip Time) A measure of delay between
two hosts. The round trip time consists of the total
time taken for a single packet or datagram to leave
one machine, reach the other and return. In most
packet switching network delays vary as a result
of congestion. Thus, measures of round trip times
usually give averages, which may have high standard
deviation.
What is TTL?
(Time To Live) A technique used in best-effort
delivery systems to avoid endlessly looping packets.
For example, each IP datagram is assigned an integer
time to live when it is created. IP gateways decrement
the time to live field when they process a datagram
and discard the datagram if the time to live counter
reaches zero.
|
|
|
|
What is the Trace tab?
(Traceroute) A network tool that lets you
obtain the list of gateways between your computer
and a particular device. The tool also calculates
and displays response times (in milliseconds), which
identify the amount of time it takes the packet
to travel the route. Response times vary depending
on network load.
You can use the Trace tool to determine if a
gateway is down in the path between your computer
and a specified remote host. (Note that traceroute
doesn't show the return path, only the path
used to reach the address.)
What is a Hop?
A measure of distance between two points in an
internet. A hop count of n means that
n gateways separate the source and destination.
|
|
|
|
What is the Lookup tab?
A network tool that lets you obtain information
on host names and IP addresses. This information
also includes possible aliases. On Windows
Vista, 2008, 7, 2008 R2, 8, 2012, 10,
and 2016 the
Lookup tool also reports physical (MAC) addresses
of computers in a local area network.
You can use the Lookup tool to:
- Look up a host name from an IP address.
- Find the IP address from a host name.
- Find the physical (MAC) address from a host
name or an IP address.
- Look up mail exchangers for the domain.
What is an alias?
An alternate name of the host.
What is DNS?
(Domain Name System) The online distributed
database system used to map human-readable machine
names into IP addresses. DNS servers throughout
the connected Internet implement a hierarchical
namespaces that allows sites freedom in assigning
machine names and addresses. DNS also supports separate
mappings between mail destinations and IP addresses.
What is a domain?
A part of the DNS naming hierarchy. Syntactically,
a domain name consists of a sequence of name (labels)
separated by periods (dots).
What is MX?
(Mail Exchanger) A server that runs an
SMTP mailer which is programmed with delivery rules
for local e-mail addresses.
What is a Preference?
The order that a mailer should follow when there
is more than one way to deliver mail to a single
machine. Lower numbers indicate higher precedence
and mailers are supposed to randomize same-valued
MX hosts so as to distribute the load evenly if
the costs are equal.
|
|
|
|
What is the Finger tab?
A network tool that lets you obtain information
about all users on a network host. This information
includes a display of current users logged on the
host (their userids and usernames). Also displayed
for each user are the home directory, login time,
idle times, office location, last time they received
mail, and last time they read mail. A Finger request
will also display any information contained in the
.plan or the .project file in the user's home
directory. These files are often used as a simple
way to distribute information. For example, the
Finger server at quake@geophys.washington.edu provides
up-to-date information about earthquakes that have
occurred in the northwest region of the United States.
You can use the Finger tool to search for specific
users on a network host.
What is the query syntax?
It is user@host.domain for obtaining information
about a single user or host.domain for obtaining
information about an entire host.
|
|
|
|
What is the Whois tab?
A network tool that lets you obtain information
on names from the Network Information Center. A
Whois request displays a contact name, mailing address,
telephone number, and network mailbox for all users
and organizations that are registered with one of
the official Whois servers, such as the Internet
Network Information Center (interNIC) database.
You can use the Whois tool to find administrative
contacts from a Whois database.
|
|
|
|
What is the Daytime tab?
A network tool that lets you obtain local time of
the day at another network host's location.
Many Web servers and domain name servers will respond
to this request.
You can use the Daytime tool to find out the
current time at any time zone around the world.
|
|
|
|
What is the Time tab? A
network tool that lets you obtain precise time value
from a remote Time server and synchronize your local
system clock. Time servers provide a constantly
updated time of day reading (in hours, minutes,
and seconds) and the date (year, month, day).
You can use the Time tool to:
- Compare your system time to that of a Time
server.
- Synchronize your system clock with a Time
server.
|
|
|
|
What is the Quote tab?
A network tool that lets you view quotations from
a remote Quote server. Quote servers often display
a "quote of the day".
You can use the Quote tool to identify if a host
is "alive".
|
|
|
|
What is the HTML tab? A
network tool that lets you obtain full header information
and the page data from a Web server. This information
also includes possible cookies.
You can use the HTML tool to debug your Web sites.
|
|
|
|
What is the Scanner tab?
A network tool that lets you scan all host names
in a specified range of IP addresses and verify
host status for each IP address. On Windows
Vista, 2008, 7, 2008 R2, 8, 2012, 10,
and 2016 the
Scanner tool also reports physical (MAC) addresses
of computers in a local area network.
You can use the Scanner tool to:
- Resolve multiple IP addresses to host names.
- Resolve multiple IP addresses to physical
(MAC) addresses.
- Determine which hosts are active on a network.
- Find hidden network services like Web servers
or FTP.
When I use
the Scanner tool in NetInfo on Windows XP, some
hosts are listed with incorrect names. What do I
do?
Microsoft found this to be a bug
in the implementation of Winsock and NetBIOS naming
service in Windows XP. The defect causes XP to accept
some name query replies that it should reject and
to confuse naming results between concurrent threads.
Please see their knowledge base article on this
topic:
GetHostbyaddr Function Is Not Thread Safe Without
DNS and/or WINS (Q317936). The article includes
a patch to NETBT.SYS that can be used to alleviate
the problem.
When
I use the Scanner tool in NetInfo on Windows XP
Service Pack 2, I get an event log message with
ID 4226. What do I do?
By design
Windows XP Service Pack 2 limits the number of simultaneous
incomplete outbound TCP connection attempts to 10.
After the rate is reached, subsequent connection
attempts are placed in a queue eventually to be
resolved at a fixed rate. This slows down programs
that open multiple TCP connections at once. The
Scanner tool is a good example of this. If there
are more concurrent TCP connection attempts, Windows
XP Service Pack 2 generates a warning: "TCP/IP
has reached the security limit imposed on the number
of concurrent (incomplete) TCP connect attempts."
To change or remove the limit, you
can use a patching program. For more information
please visit
http://www.lvllord.de.
|
|
|
|
What is the Services tab?
A network tool that lets you verify a host for available
network services. The tool displays the currently
active port and the usual service assigned to it.
You can use the Services tool to find hidden
services like Web servers or FTP.
What is a port?
The abstraction that transport protocols use
to distinguish among multiple destinations within
a given host computer. TCP/IP protocols identify
ports using small positive integers. Usually, the
operating system allows an application program to
specify which port it wants to use. Some ports are
reserved for standard services (e.g. electronic
mail).
|
|
|
|
What is the E-mail tab?
A network tool that lets you verify an e-mail address.
This tool is your powerful solution for the standard "message
delivery error." There is no need to disturb
your clients and friends anymore to check if their
e-mail addresses are still valid. E-mail tool connects
directly to their SMTP server and checks it for
you. Nothing is sent to the recipient.
You can use the E-mail tool to:
- Query mail exchangers for the domain.
- Instant verify of bad e-mail addresses and
invalid domains.
- Gain more information about the owner of
an e-mail address.
|
|
|
|
What is the Web Center tab?
A network tool that lets you find the most useful
tools, how-tos, tips, and news available online.
You can use the Web Center tool to perform common
tasks that involve bypassing a firewall, such as
pinging a host server.
|
|
|
|
