This is the first question that we make when entering some software website. YES! Network Pinger is free, meaning that there won't be anything charged for the software download. To use it you just have to download it, and there will never be any cost.

All the projects made by the Author of this software are free, whether they are softwares, algorithms, mathematical formulas, ebooks or texts, websites, etc. So, this software will never cease being free, it will always have a free version for everybody that may like using it.

Network Pinger can be used by everybody. May them be non-professional users, student groups, companies, government workers, for personal use, for professional use, etc. Anyone is free to use this software. If an Internet Service Provider with 100,000 employees decides to use this freeware, it can do it freely. If 1,000 employees in a company have to use it, they can do it. There are no additional licenses, any number or persons is free to use this software wherever they may be, and it can be installed in any number of computer systems as possible, without limits.

No. At the time it was thought if it would be worth to create several separated small softwares. But honestly, it wouldn't be worth it. Network Pinger is a software that has around 2MB of size, and nowadays there is nobody carrying those old 2MB floppy disks with very small softwares created to fit in them anymore. So, 2MB of size isn't such a big problem at all. Whoever wants to use one of its functionalities, can open the main software window and inside it open only what is needed, and keep the rest closed. Even the main window itself can be closed. We can open the software, execute a ping, keep the ping window open, and close all the rest. This way we'll just consume the memory we want and there is no necessity to create separated versions of the software, neither would it be useful to make 20 downloads instead of just one with everything.

This is a question that always divides opinions. But the truth is that the opening of windows in a separated way is more effective for several reasons.

First place, as it is done right now, we can open Network Pinger, tell it to execute a ping and minimize it to the system tray, and close the main window to save memory. With the tab system, we wouldn't save as much memory that way.

Second, without tabs, it is a lot easier to manage the windows, because we have the best of both worlds, separated windows for those who want it, and the others could also use those options on the operating systems to join similar windows and this way save space on the taskbar. This way we have the best of both worlds.

Third, the tabbed version was tested and not only it wasn't as practical and effective, as also it created more confusion, we ended up having a main window with several others inside it and in their respective tabs, and we had to check window by window to see which was the tab that had the ping we were searching for. We just need to try to do like 20 or 30 pings simultaneously to know how it is much easier to manage those windows through the operating system functionalities by our preferences, than to be forced to use a tabbed system to do it.

Last but not least, it is a lot more flexible the option to open separated windows. It is in my point of view perfect this way to be able to have some open windows, others minimized, others minimized to the system tray, etc. We could have something in the system tray all day making an infinite ping to a server, having other open and minimized windows, accessible whenever we want, and others opened. And with the task bar grouping similar windows. It is simple and effective.

For that reason, no, there is no intention in the future to create a new version of this software with tabs instead of the current separated windows system.

No, and possible there won't be. For several reasons. First, because this software is very easy and intuitive to use, also because it is made for a certain target users that should already have some notions of what a ping is, and about its other functionalities. Everything can be done with a mouse, unless writing stuff through the keys of course. This way, while installing Network Pinger, when opening it for the first time, the user will most certainly have access to the Internet, and as such, be able to visualize Network Pinger's online tutorial. It is also much probable that the majority of users use most of the times this software while connected to the Internet than while being offline. Putting the tutorial on the software package itself for download would cause a very big increase on the size of the package file, and also an increase on the size of the software itself, making the executable file having a considerable size increment, or having to be distributed with some tutorial file or files in attach. At the moment it seems that there is no need for that to happen, so in the future we'll see what happens.

As some softwares like anti-virus and similar ones use to send alerts to its users about softwares that try to connect to any website while being started, that would cause confusion, emails with questions being sent to the software developer, etc, so for those reasons, it was decided to disable the search for newer versions functions in this software. It's everything easier this way. Whoever wants to know if there is a newer version available, can sign up in an easy way on our forum, and as soon as a new version is released, an email will be sent to all users registered in the forum to tell them about it. And of course you can always do the traditional visits to the website to know if there is something new, and that can be done with a simple mouse click on the help button on Network Pinger itself.

Yes, Network Pinger was created and tested in a multi-processing environment and in an multi-threading way in order to take advantage of the user's computer whenever necessary, being nevertheless careful enough to avoid consuming all the machine's CPU resources. You can test and check if it takes advantage of all the CPUs that might exist in your machine, because it is done in a way so that it can adapt to the most CPUs and architectures possible.

Yes, of course. It was made and prepared to work in 64 bit environments also. Not doing it, would be a very serious mistake for a software of this kind, also because the majority of its users will probably use 64 bit systems soon, if not using them already.

This software was prepared to work the best way possible on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Although it can work in Windows XP, and who knows, some other operating systems not tested already that have the 3.5 .Net framework installed, it would be best to have a Windows Vista or Windows 7. It was also tested on the Windows XP, but on this operating system the results could not be as good as they would be on more recent operating systems. These new versions are the recommended ones, and Network Pinger won't be optimized for Windows XP also because it's an operating system being less and less used nowadays, as well as the former ones. If you test this on other operating systems with success, maybe we can add them to this F.A.Q.

Sometimes there are certain restrictions related to the file formats that a software can use to save documents, and it's for that reason that there are softwares that are free but if their users choose to have the ability to read or save documents with special file extensions like the .DOCX then they usually have to pay for that special version of the software that is able to read those file extensions (check the former Star Office situation with free and payed versions), which is the price of those file format licenses. Network Pinger is prepared to save documents in several file formats, in HTML with images, in text, in .RTF with embedded charts, which are more than enough. Why? Because whoever wants to save a report with the .DOC file format, only has to save it as a .RTF file, and open that .RTF (Rich Text File, which may contain even charts if necessary) on a software that is able to save files on that .DOC file format, as for example the Word for Windows, Star Office, etc. This way the user can always save the reports on other file formats with the help of their corresponding softwares, without causing extra costs on the software itself with licenses costs, and continuing this software to be distributed as freeware, as also with a reduced executable file size.

About the PDF file format, it's easy. We just need to install a special application that allows us to "print" a document to a file with the .PDF format, like the www.pdf995.com one, and this way we just have to give a print order of the document to the virtual printer created by that software, and we would have our document saved in the .PDF file format. Or we can simply open it in softwares that can save them with the .PDF file format like the Open Office, Star Office, or others.

This way, there is no need whatsoever for additional costs in softwares due to licenses on special file formats, neither to increase the size of the executable file with algorithms to save documents with file formats that are easy to obtain separately. We just need the .HTML, .TXT, and the very important .RTF file formats to save text with charts, and all the rest will be easier later.

This software is prepared at the moment to calculate the layout that a page will have when being printed, based on the parameters and characteristics of a certain printer. For that reason, if we doesn't have a printer installed, the software won't be able to know how to create a print preview of that document, and will give us an error. Those who don't have a printer, can always use a software like the mentioned above that is used for saving .PDF files through printing, and put its drivers as the default printer (in this case we're speaking about the pdf995 software mentioned above), and Network Pinger, when detecting that a "virtual printer" exists, which is represented by that software, will already be able to extract information from it and the required parameters for the creation of the print previewing, and the errors will be gone.

There are several reasons why there are no versions for those operating systems being thought for the near future. First, the fact that Network Pinger was developed by a single person, its developer, something that took several months to do in his free times, and for that reason any other versions for other operating systems would cause a very big lost of its developer's free time, and sacrificing his free time that could be used to improve this version of Network Pinger Windows software. Unless there is a way for the developer to be able to stop sleeping and to use that extra time to program, those versions for other operating systems won't be a reality in the near future. And it would take a lot of time anyway, because this software was made based on the .Net Framework and not in something more standard that could be easily migrated to other operating systems.

Another reason is that this project is still very recent, so its developer doesn't know yet its acceptance by its users, and only after knowing that would be logical to think it it would be good to create new versions or not, also at this time when its developer has several other software projects that could have more acceptance and this way deserving more of his attention in the near future.

The final reason is that, without mentioning the fact that the majority of this page's visitors have the Windows operating system, there are things like MONO for Linux, which could allow the using of this software in Linux through it, as long as it supports the .Net 3.5 Framework. In that case, it would be unnecessary the creation of another version of this software for Linux on the near future.

But who knows, if this software has a big acceptance from its users and one day its developer has a lot of spare time on his hands, it could be a project to think about. Its developer has done already things well more complex than this one, so no idea related to this project would be thought of as impossible. Until then, this software can't be too optimized to work well with MONO because it would sacrifice its own quality on the Windows operating system, for which it was originally made, and this way its developer chose its quality on the Windows operating system as its main priority, and this way it was chosen its quality over its quantity/portability.

Its developer dedicates himself to many other softwares and projects all the time, all of them free, in his spare times, and this is just another one of them. Some of them are public, others are private, but they are all projects that take him a lot of his spare time. For that reason he can't guarantee that there will be made many frequent updates, but according with the acceptance from its users (like visits on the website, downloads, participation on the forum or guestbook, etc), he could think on adding new functionalities on user requests on his spare times later, a little at a time. This way, there can be new updates made with time, but remember that this is a freeware, and not something made by a company full of computer programmers and technicians working full time on it. So it could take some months to appear new versions or even softwares from its developer, and also if few persons use it, there will be less chances for that to happen. But this project is to be continued.

Due to the fact that this software was made only by a single person in his spare times occasionally, its developer could never dedicate to this project full time and spend a lot of time without working on his other projects. So, about the automated browsing, the developer would have two possibilities: to loose months creating a browser which was completely independent from the operating system, or using some resources from the operating system itself. So, so save precious developing time, its developer decided to take the most advantages possible from some operating system resources shared with other softwares, in its automated browsing, as some resources shared with the Internet Explorer itself, a browser that comes by default with the Windows operating system. This way, a user that has frequent problems with other softwares as for example with its own Internet Explorer, or other frequent errors, could see some errors while using other functionalities from Network Pinger, and there are certain errors which the software itself doesn't control for being external to it, for depending on external resources in some other operations. For this reason, there could be several errors related to the operating system itself in one machine, and in another one with the same operating system, this software could be working perfectly without a single error, because of depending also on the operating system of the machine in which it works also.

It may look strange, but at the beginning it was due to its developer having a screen resolution of 1600 pixels of width on his laptop, and everything looked small to him. Near the end, he realized that the best screen resolution would be 1280 because with 1024 there wouldn't be available space on screen for some windows. To correct this, it would make its developer have to change the design of more than 10 windows, lots of functions, configurations, etc. Adding months of work to this project, for something that doesn't stop its 1024 pixels resolution screen users to fully use this software, and knowing also that nowadays few users really have the 1024 screen resolution on their machines, it would be a terrible idea to correct all this, and it would have been a big waste of time, precious time that could be spent with other projects from its developer. So its developer opted that that precious time would be spent on other projects. The current size of the windows was this way kept like they are.

Network Pinger was tested by its developer and friends with more than 10,000 hosts being pinged simultaneously during its production. It will be tested again that way one day, but that requires feedback from those who work with a so big number of machines to test and ping, like workers on ISP companies, like I was once also. At the time, although some time would be required for the software to populate a table with more than 10,000 hosts to ping, everything went well on many times, and the multi-threading system divided its load very well by all hosts and threads, and the results were really great.

If someone does pings like these to many hosts, and likes to give his/her feedback, I could create here a list of "records", with the biggest number of hosts tested, with times, duration, resources used, etc, to serve as example for other users. For that reason, all feedbacks, print-screens (that can be published), and such, will be welcome.

Its developer is Portuguese (for those who don't know he's from that 900 year old country next to Spain, the most western country in Europe), so because of that its first version was released in Portuguese, and it was immediately translated to English. Although its developer is fluent in other languages like Spanish also, his daily lack of time doesn't allow him to dedicate too much time doing new translations. So the main idea is this:

Being the English version ready and available, from that version all of you can translate it to any language that you might wish to. If you wish to participate somehow, you just need to ask me a list of words and sentences (around 600 lines with an average of two words each), and who knows maybe you can translate it to your own language in a quick and easily way, and if you wish to help on the translation of this website to your language also, I would thank you for the help, because this project wasn't made to be profitable but instead to help others, and for that reason its developer won't pay to 100 translators to translate its text to 100 languages.

So if you like to see this software on your own language, your help is very welcome here, and your names will be put on this software's help window as well as on its website so that you may be recognized for doing it, besides being another reference for your curriculums, specially for students or translation professionals.

The person (or persons) that translate this software to other languages, can participate also as moderators on a sub-forum dedicated to helping users on their own languages, because if a sub-forum is created on a language which the developer doesn't understand, its developer could never help those who speak on it.

So, if you want to participate on the translation of this project, you just need to send an email to its developer and you'll be very welcome, and you could be part of a new team, in a new project: