I am in search of a netstat-like utility for Windows. Ideally it'll be a nice clean graphical interface which shows, in real time, the connections (incoming and outgoing) on my PC. The same info from netstat, but presented more nicely. Maybe well-known port connections (HTTP, FTP, etc) will be either color-coded or have some nice graphical/iconic way to see that they're special connections.. Maybe the ability to redefine what those port definitions are, etc. Maybe it can show how long a certain connection has been open, who opened it, etc.

Does such an animal exist? My net searches haven't been very productive. The ones I've seen are basically a bunch of text tables that look like the DOS output, but in a pretty table. The GUI's dont add much functionality.

Did you see TCPView? They also have TCPView Pro which adds some nice features.

Looks interesting, doesn't have all the bells and whistles I mentioned, but that's typical of SysInternals' stuff. Didn't know they had a TCP monitor type application. I'll try that one out.

The pro version has filtering....

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for. Do you really want a netstat type utility, or are you looking more for a network monitor? That is, do you want to see internal information, like what ports are open and what processes are using them, or do you want to see network information, like the actual data that's passing over the ports in real time. I don't think that a real time version of the former type is possible, as I'm pretty sure that polling has to be performed to get the data, and it's rather CPU-intensive.

Not looking for a snooper, I have Application Expert for that kinda stuff. I'm hoping for something netstat-ish. Basically something I can quickly look at to see what kind of connections are open on my system. Not necessarily to see hackers or anything, just for informational purposes, and also to see if there's any ad-ware or background network stuff going on from my applications.

I just installed the trial of TCPView Pro and it looks like it's got some of what I want. It's got good filtering and all, but I wish its "Highlight filters" allowed for more than simple text matching. It also only allows one color. I would like to assign, say, blue text for HTTP, green for FTP, etc. Color-coded connection types so I know what I have open. The thing is, in TCPView pro, if I tell it to look for either "ftp" or ":21" it will highlight any host containing the string "ftp" even if it's not an FTP connection. And it'll highlight any entry which has the string ":21" which includes the "time" field. Not very smart matching.

Anyway I just figured there had to be some more GUI alternatives to NT's netstat, and TCPView Pro looks good, it's just not *exactly* what I want. Maybe they'll add new features in the future.

Cool! An Application Expert user! I was on the bug fix team for AE at one point. Purchased through Optimal or Compuware?

Calvin

No idea who it was purchased through... I used it when I was in our test lab to analyze HTTP traffic and such. I've since moved on to development but I still use it occasionally for unit tests and such.

What's in the About box? Optimal Networks or Compuware Corp?

Always fascinating to see it in use. What company do you work for?

Calvin

What's in the About box? Optimal Networks or Compuware Corp?

I'd have to check the next time I'm using it. I never look at about boxes. :)

I work as a middleware and technical services developer for The Vanguard Group, a large investment company. I develop the software that authenticates and authorizes users on our internal and external websites. I used to get a lot more use out of App Expert when I was doing functional and performance testing, now it only comes into play if there's a serious communication problem between one of our modules and we can't analyze it with log files or any of our custom test tools. There's only one machine in the lab that has it installed these days.