PingPlotter and MultiPing with Windows 7

Question

Do MultiPing and PingPlotter work with Windows 7 and Windows 2008?

Solution

In general, MultiPing 2.10.2, PingPlotter Standard 3.30.4s and PingPlotter Pro 3.30.4p all work well under Windows 7, Windows 2008 (and Vista), but there are some caveats and limitations. This article will covers these.

UDP and/or TCP packets on PingPlotter Standard and PingPlotter Pro

The default ICMP packets work great with Windows 7/2008/Vista, but if you're using one of the more advanced packet types, you might have some problems. With Vista, Microsoft has replaced the protocol stack and this causes some problems with UDP packet type in PingPlotter (MultiPing has only ICMP packets and is not affected by this). This also applies to the seldom-used ICMP Raw Sockets type.

Windows 7/2008/Vista now filter some of the ICMP packets coming back (primarily, the ICMP TTL Expired packets). This means that if you're using the UDP packet type, under Windows 7/2008/Vista you won't see any intermediate hops - only the final destination. There is no known workaround for this right now.

TCP packets require the WinPCap library (version 4.0 or higher is recommended), and to interface with WinPCap on 7/2008/Vista, the current versions of PingPlotter must be running as Adminstrator. If you right-click on the PingPlotter icon and launch with the 'Run as Administrator' option, then TCP packets should work fine. Once you've done this once, then the WinPCap driver will be running and future launches of PingPlotter can be done as a normal user (until you reboot). Launching without administrative rights (the first time after a reboot) will cause an error to appear above the graph: 'pcap_open: PacketGetAdapterNames: The data area passed to a system call is too small.' - this error is misleading, it's really an access rights error.

If you often find yourself using the TCP packet type, you can automatically start the WinPCap driver at boot so you don't have to run PingPlotter as an administrator. To see information on how to do this, visit the WinPCap faq and look at question 18.

Running as a service with PingPlotter Pro

Running as an interactive service has changed significantly with WIndows Vista/7/2008. It's still possible, but requires a workaround. We talk about how to do that here.

PingPlotter Freeware

PingPlotter Freeware V1.30 and higher fully support Windows 7, 2008 and Vista. If you're using a version prior to 1.30, please upgrade to that version.

Other Notes

Make sure you're using the latest releases, as MultiPing, PingPlotter Freeware, Standard and Pro have had several releases to fix some issues under Vista/7/2008.