How do you detect packet-loss on Windows Server 2003?

Question

Is there any way to detect packet loss with the help of performance counters or am I better of using a 3rd-party tool? What tools would you recommend?

Answer 1

We've always found tools based on the PCAP library to be useful. In particular Wireshark (www.wireshark.org) is great for getting a network traffic trace and it will highlight problems such as packet loss in its output.

Answer 2

Are you trying to track the total number of TCP retries because of packet losses? If so, then yes, Performance Counters will work fine.

Answer 3

netstat -s will show you the total count of retransmissions. Wireshark can capture traffic and got an "expert info" (under Analyze) that will tell you about obious network related errors.