Before reaching for third-party network tools, Windows’ built-in command-line utilities diagnose the vast majority of everyday connectivity problems.
# Check your own IP configuration ipconfig /all # Renew a DHCP lease if the IP looks wrong ipconfig /release ipconfig /renew # Flush a stale DNS cache ipconfig /flushdns # Test basic connectivity ping 8.8.8.8 # tests raw connectivity, bypassing DNS ping google.com # tests connectivity AND DNS resolution together # Trace the path a packet takes, useful for isolating WHERE a connection breaks tracert google.com # Check which process is using a specific port netstat -ano | findstr :443 # Test whether a specific port is actually reachable Test-NetConnection -ComputerName example.com -Port 443
Pinging the IP address directly (bypassing DNS) versus the hostname is a genuinely useful first diagnostic split — if the IP works but the hostname doesn’t, the problem is DNS, not the network connection itself.