Windows 7 / Networking

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Network Monitor

Network Monitor 3.3, a free download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/, is the most capable-and complicated-tool for analyzing network communications. Network Monitor is a protocol analyzer (commonly known as a sniffer) capable of capturing every byte transferred to and from a computer running Windows 7. An experienced system administrator can use Network Monitor to troubleshoot a wide variety of problems, including:

• Network performance problems.
• TCP connection problems.
• IP protocol stack configuration problems.
• Problems caused by network filtering.
• Application-layer problems with text-based protocols, including Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Post Office Protocol (POP), and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).

Network Monitor performs a significant amount of interpretation of captured information by separating the different protocols involved in network communications. Network Monitor can even interpret most common application-layer protocols. For example, when analyzing HTTP traffic, Network Monitor automatically identifies the packet containing the HTTP request and lists the request method, Uniform Resource Locator (URL), referrer, user agent, and other parameters included in the request. This information is extremely useful when troubleshooting compatibility problems with a specific browser.

To analyze network traffic by using Network Monitor, follow these steps:

1. Download and install Network Monitor and then restart the computer to enable the Network Monitor driver for your network adapters.
2. Click Start, click All Programs, click Microsoft Network Monitor 3.3, and then click Microsoft Network Monitor 3.3.
3. Click New Capture.
4. With the New Capture tab selected, click the Select Networks tab and select one or more network adapters.
5. Click Start to begin capturing communications.
6. Switch to the application from which you want to capture the network traffic and then perform the steps to generate the traffic. For example, if you want to capture a request to a Web server, switch to Windows Internet Explorer and enter the Web address. After you have generated the traffic that you want to capture, return to Network Monitor.
7. On the Capture menu in Network Monitor, click Stop.
8. On the Network Conversations page, click the application you want to monitor.
9. In the Frame Summary pane, browse the captured frames. Click a frame to view its contents.

For example a capture of a TCP connection and an HTTP request created by visiting a Web site with a browser. Because Iexplore.exe is selected in the Network Conversations pane, only frames sent to or from Internet Explorer are displayed. The Frame Summary pane lists the captured packets. The first three frames show the three-way TCP handshake. As you can see from the Frame Details pane, the selected frame shows Internet Explorer requesting / from the Web server. The following frame is the response, which is an HTTP 302 redirection to a different page. Frame 35 is Internet Explorer requesting the page to which it was directed, /en/us/default.aspx.