WinTraceRoute

WinTraceRoute User Guide

WinTraceRoute maps the path your traffic takes to a remote host. It lists each router along the way, measures how quickly it replies, counts lost probes and identifies the network that owns it. This guide covers running a trace, understanding every column of the results, each option in the Settings dialog and saving your results.

Contents

1. Getting started in four steps
2. Running a trace
3. What each column tells you
4. Finding the real problem on a route
5. Adjusting the Settings dialog
6. Saving results to a file
7. Requirements and licensing

1. Getting started in four steps

1. In the Enter Host Name or IPv4 / IPv6 Address field, type where you want to go: a name like example.com, an IPv4 address like 93.184.215.14 or an IPv6 address like 2606:2800:21f:cb07::1.
2. Press Trace. Routers show up in the list one by one as WinTraceRoute finds them.
3. Look along the rows for loss or rising delay (see section 4 for how to read them).
4. If you need to share the results, press Export to write them to a text file.

2. Running a trace

There are three toolbar buttons that start a trace:

• Trace follows the Address Family option from Settings. Out of the box that option is Automatic, which means the program picks IPv4 or IPv6 based on the addresses the host has.
• Trace IPv4 and Trace IPv6 override that choice, but only for the trace you are starting now.

To stop a trace before it finishes, press Cancel. After a trace completes, the status bar at the bottom of the window displays the host name together with the IP address it traced.

3. What each column tells you

One row equals one router (hop) on the path. The final row is the target host itself.

4. Finding the real problem on a route

Traceroute output is easy to misread. Keep these points in mind:

• A single silent hop is usually harmless. When a row reads “Request timed out”, shows * for RTT and 100% loss, that router simply didn’t answer in time. Plenty of routers drop or throttle traceroute probes while still passing ordinary traffic, so a quiet hop partway along the path rarely matters.
• Real trouble carries forward. Genuine loss or extra delay persists on every later hop all the way to the destination. Focus on the earliest hop where it appears.
• Distance adds delay. RTT naturally jumps between hops located in different cities or countries – that’s just how far the signal has to go. Use the AS Name and Remote Host columns to spot the point where your provider passes traffic on to another network.
• Timeouts at the very end may mean the target host, or a firewall in front of it, is blocking probes. Run the trace again with a longer reply timeout, or switch to the other address family.

5. Adjusting the Settings dialog

Open the dialog with the Settings toolbar button. Where a setting matches an option of the built-in Windows tracert command, that switch is printed in parentheses beside it. Press Defaults at any time to return everything to its original value.

Hop lookups

Ping settings

Address family

• Choose Automatic, Force IPv4 (-4) or Force IPv6 (-6). This decides which family the Trace button uses.
• Skip local and reserved targets prevents tracing to private, loopback, link-local, multicast and unallocated addresses.

Advanced routing

List columns

Tick the columns you want to see; there are 14 in total. Turning off the ones you don’t need keeps the list readable on a small display.

6. Saving results to a file

Press Export on the toolbar and WinTraceRoute writes the most recent trace to a text file. This is handy when you open a ticket with your Internet service provider or hosting company and want to include the evidence.

7. Requirements and licensing

• Operating system: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 and 11 (32-bit and 64-bit).
• Network: working IPv4 or IPv6 connectivity. Tracing over IPv6 needs an IPv6 Internet connection.
• License: you can try the program free for 30 days. A license costs $19.95 – buy one with the Buy now button on this page or via Help > Register in the program.