In this article we explain how you can run a traceroute on Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 or Windows Vista. You can run a traceroute to determine where the connection to the servers fails. You can also run a traceroute to determine what servers you pass when you’re reaching a website.
Let’s get started on running a traceroute on Windows! The steps are quite easy and should be easy to follow for everyone.
How to Run a Traceroute on Windows 10, 8, 7 and Vista
1. Begin by pressing the Windows and R key on your keyboard at the same time, a Run window will appear, then type cmd and hit enter. Alternatively you can open Start and type Command Prompt and then click on Command Prompt
2. Once CMD has opened you can type the following command, once you typed the command hit enter. A traceroute can take some time, so sit back and relax:
tracert WEBSITE/IP
In the command above replace Website/IP with the website you want to trace to or the ip you want to trace to. You can also add additional parameters to set a maximum to the number of hops, to force IPv6 and so on. We will show the parameters below.
In the image above you can see a successful traceroute to WindowsInstructed.com. If you see * * * * appear multiple times then the connection at that point was lost.
Parameters you can use with Tracert
You can use the following parameters / options when you run a traceroute on Windows.
| Parameter | Description |
| -d | Do not resolve addresses to hostnames. |
| -h | Maximum number of hops to search for target. |
| -j | Loose source route along host-list (IPv4-only). |
| -w | Wait timeout milliseconds for each reply. |
| -r | Trace round-trip path (IPv6-only). |
| -s | Source address to use (IPv6-only). |
| -4 | Force using IPv4. |
| -6 | Force using IPv6. |
We hope this article explained to you how you start and read a traceroute on Windows. If you have any more questions or comments then feel free to visit our forums where we will help you personally for free. Thanks for reading.