How long does it take to copy 1 GB over a slow network connection? How fast does my virtual application start? Today I came across a nice FREE utility called Network Delay Simulator.

Network Simulator tool allows you to perform network bandwidth and delay simulation (simulate slow/congested links between nodes) on any connection from your computer to any remote node (on the local LAN or remote over Internet).

More information and download links can be found here

Here I simulate a slow connection to a remote server.

Here I simulate a slow connection to the internet

Back in April i posted an article about Testing Network Speed, here’s another nice utility that allows testing your network speed, and even more. The Utility is called DownTester and is part of the awesome tool collection from NirSoft.

DownTester allows you to test the download speed via HTTP, FTP, Remote File Shares and any local drives such as your local drive, DVD and USB.

The Tool is FREE and does not need to be installed.

If you get tasked to do some system troubleshooting and you just want to get as many information possible from a client, then have a look at the Microsoft Product Support Report Tool and the Product Support Reports Viewer.

The Microsoft Product Support Reports Viewer 2.0 can be downloaded from here and the Microsoft Product Support Reports from here

First launch the Microsoft Product Support Tool, which is a self-extracting executable (no installation needed). Once launched you can select the diagnostics you want to execute, then select Next to get the Diagnostic (Data Collection) started. Note that depending on the diagnostics selected, this process can take a while (up to 25 minutes).

Once the Diagnostic process has completed you can browse, e-mail or save the results. When saving the results, all data is stored in a single CAB file.

The Microsoft Product Support Report Viewer provides an interface to view the collected diagnostic data, which consists of several individual XML files.

While the diagnostic tool was running on my client, I copied the content of the temporary folder that the tool creates within the users TEMP folder into another folder. (if you have many folders in your TEMP folder just sort by date, and open the one with the newest date).

Within that folder you will find a Tools folder which contains all the executables and scripts used by the Diagnosis Tool.

So next time you get one of these famous calls to help solving a system problem, consider using this tool to gather detailed system information data.

There many tools out there that can measure the network speed between 2 computers, but either you have to pay for them or you need to go through a lengthy installation or configuration process. I want something that is FREE and easy to use. Here’s what I end up with after 30 minutes of browsing the web and doing some test installs of the various tools I found.

Test TCP Utility

To measure the network speed between 2 computers you must run the Test TCP Utility on each client. One client will act as the receiver and the other one as the transmitter. So let’s say you want to test the network speed between PC-A and PC-B.

First download the Test TCP Utility from here then store the downloaded PCATTCP.exe on each of the machines.

Open a command prompt on PC-A and run the following command (This client is the receiver, the output is shown in mega bytes)

PCATTCP –r –f m

Then open a command prompt on PC-B and run the following command (replace the below

PCATTCP –t <IP Address of the receiving PC>

After a few seconds the results are displayed on both the receiver and transmitter client.

PCAUSA Test TCP Utility V2.01.01.11
Started TCP Receive Test 0…
TCP Receive Test
  Local Host  : VERBOON-01
**************
  Listening…: On port 5001

Accept      : TCP <- 192.168.1.8:50180
Buffer Size : 8192; Alignment: 16384/0
Receive Mode: Sinking (discarding) Data
Statistics  : TCP <- 192.168.1.8:50180
16777216 bytes in 1.44 real seconds = 89.14 Mbit/sec +++
numCalls: 3061; msec/call: 0.48; calls/sec: 2131.62

More Information about Test TCP (Benchmarking Tool and Simple Network Traffic Generator) can be found here

LAN Speed Test

The other utility I found is called LAN Speed Test provided by Simple Software Solutions. LAN Speed Test performs the speed test by writing and reading  a file on a remote client. The remote client and file size of the test file can be specified within the UI when starting the test.

LAN Speed Test can be downloaded from here

Today I have spend some time in taking a look at MED-V. I reviewed MED-V already about a year ago, but had not touched it since then. Microsoft just recently released an updated version of MED-V as part of the MDOP suite. While configuring a Workspace, my attention was caught by the “Clients should use Trim Transfer when downloading images for this Workspace” setting that is shown within the Virtual Machine Tab.

The documentation describes the setting as following:

Select this check box to enable Trim Transfer when downloading images associated with this MED-V workspace. If this check box is cleared, the full image will be downloaded.

Trim Transfer requires indexing the hard drive, which might take a considerable amount of time. It is recommended to use Trim Transfer when indexing the hard drive is more efficient than downloading the new image version, such as when downloading an image version that is similar to the existing version.

A detailed description of the MED-V Trim Transfer Technology can be found here

OK, just clicking a check box is not enough , I want to see that. I first configured a Workspace called Workspace and assigned a previously created Windows XP image, once the Image was published on the MED-V Server is launched the MED-V client on a second device. As you can see from the screen shot below, the image is downloaded from the server

I then created a second Workspace and assigned a slightly different image to it that is based on the first one I created, I just added another application to it. Once that Image was published to the server, I headed over to the MED-V Client device which prompted me that there was another Workspace available, after confirming, it started downloading that other image. But as you can see from the screen shot below, it is actually retrieving the data blocks from the local drive, hence not the complete image is being downloaded from the server again. 

Today’s ToolTip is about SoftPerfect Connection Emulator SCE. As the name says the software allows you to emulate different connection types. Unfortunately the tool is not for free, but I found the software nice enough to give it a try and eventually buy it especially since I haven’t been able to find a free alternative yet.

SCE allows you to simulate different network speeds such as modem, ISDN or DSL. You can either choose one of the predefined speed settings or configure your own. Furthermore you can configure the Latency and Packet loss rates. I tested SCE by configuring various network speeds and then used Speedtest.net to check the results and they were very accurate.

A fully functional trial version with a 30 seconds session limit can be downloaded from here

Windows 7 with the Firewall enabled by default does not allow ping requests, hence when you ping a remote Windows 7 client it will not respond.

In this WebCast John Baker explains how to configure the Firewall to respond to ICMPv4 Echo Requests.

Watch the WebCast here

If you ever experience an issue where clients don’t get correct IP addresses or your PXE Service might not work or respond, then before knocking on the Network guy’s door, you might want to run the RogueChecker utility. The RogueChecker utility is a nice little FREE tool that can help detecting rogue (misconfigured or unauthorized) DHCP servers in your network.

To get the tool reporting a rogue server I enabled both the Microsoft DHCP server and the integrated DHCP Service on our Wireless Access point. 

The tool provides the following features:

• The tool can be run one time or can be scheduled to run at specified interval.
• Can be run on a specified interface by selecting one of the discovered interfaces.
• Retrieves all the authorized DHCP servers in the forest and displays them.
• Ability to validate (not Authorize in AD) a DHCP server which is not rogue and persist this information
• Minimize the tool, which makes it invisible. A tray icon will be present which would display the status.

The tool can be downloaded from the Microsoft Windows DHCP Team Blog.

Just found another nice FREE Utility. As the name says SoftPerfect Network Scanner allows you to scan your network and allows you to find any IP, NetBIOS or SNMP enabled devices. The tool also supports Remote WMI, Registry and Service access that can be customized to your own needs.

The Tool does not require installation. Download SoftPerfect Network Scanner from here

Network Lights developed by Igor Tolmachev is a Windows program, which blinks keyboard LEDs (Light Emitting Diode) indicating outgoing and incoming network packets on network interface.

Network Lights lets you monitor network activity (upload/download) from your keyboard ScrollLock and NumLock indicators. Each LED will flicker when network traffic is detected.

Network Lights can be downloaded from here.