Why This Chapter Matters

The purpose of this chapter is to teach you to recognize and resolve common connectivity problems that end users encounter in small home office workgroups, larger local area networks (LANs), and corporate domains. Resolving connectivity problems at the tier 1 level involves testing the physical connections, testing the hardware, and verifying that the servers are online (if applicable), followed by testing and troubleshooting configured connections at the end user’s computer. An end user might have several connections configured, including a direct or shared Internet connection; a connection to another computer through a hub, switch, or router; a connection to a larger LAN through the Internet; or a connection to a domain or a domain server.

In addition to calls that involve physical and configured connections, you might be asked to resolve more advanced connectivity issues. At the end of this chapter, you will learn about these advanced issues and how to use command-line utilities such as Ping, Ipconfig, and PathPing to determine the problem; how to configure Domain Name System (DNS) and Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) addresses; and how to troubleshoot files such as HOSTS and LMHOSTS.

Before You Begin

Before you begin this chapter, you should have basic familiarity with the Microsoft Windows XP interface. You should also have access to a computer running Windows XP on which you can experiment with changing various settings. To complete some of the practices in this chapter, you will also need a network adapter installed in your computer, and you will need to be connected to the Internet.