up vote 4 down vote favorite
1
share [g+] share [fb]

I always assumed that Windows assumes that it is on the Internet when there is a default gateway.

Turns out this is not the case!

How does it judge, it is on the Internet? Does it "phone home"?

link|improve this question
100% accept rate
Why not use a passive tap (or monitoring port on the switch) and use wireshark to watch what flows in and out of the machine? Seems a lot better than guessing. – John Gardeniers Oct 12 '10 at 3:00
@John Gardeniers, yes - but then I would not give the kind people on serverfault a chance to express themselves on this matter, right? :) – Amigable Clark Kant Oct 12 '10 at 7:59
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 11 down vote accepted

As documented at

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766017(WS.10).aspx

nslookup dns.msftncsi.com followed by HTTP GET www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt

link|improve this answer
2  
wget: unable to resolve host address `msftncsi.com' Isn't that weird then? – Amigable Clark Kant Oct 11 '10 at 14:57
1  
That is strange, works for me msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt – Chris S♦ Oct 11 '10 at 15:04
Works for me too now. OK, weird, but then DNS always had a touch of black magic over it: blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/09/podcast-68 – Amigable Clark Kant Oct 12 '10 at 7:57
feedback
up vote -1 down vote

A simple "ping microsoft.com" could tell if it is online. This is a usual way and there are no privat datas transmitted.

link|improve this answer
3  
While that certainly is A way, is it THE way? That's the question the OP is asking. – joeqwerty Oct 11 '10 at 14:42
No, ping microsoft.com tells you if Microsoft.com is online and that ICMP traffic is working between you and them. If Microsoft.com is down, I'm not necessarily offline... – ceejayoz Dec 8 '11 at 23:12
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.