The pathping command is one of the most popular network troubleshooting tools in Windows. This command combines the functionality of tracert and ping. It is commonly used to troubleshoot network issues, particularly the ones related to latency and network performance. This command sends multiple echo Request messages to each router between a source and destination, over a period of time, and then computes results based on the packets returned from each router. Because this command displays the degree of packet loss at any given router or link, you can determine which routers or subnets might be having network problems. Used without parameters, this command displays help.
Syntax: pathping [options] [target]
- -q to set the number of echo requests
- -h to set the maximum number of hops
- -w to set the timeout period waiting for a reply
- -n to prevent the command from resolving the IP address of the routers
Pathping examples
Here’s how the pathping command will look if you’re setting the interval between echo requests to 200 milliseconds.
pathping -p 200 www.facebook.com
For setting the timeout period to 300 milliseconds, the command will look like this:
pathping -w 300 www.facebook.com
If you want to minimize the hops to 4 and echo requests to 20, the command will look like:
pathping -h 4 -q 20 www.facebook.com