I notice today this behaviour, and it is a weird surprise to me.
linux :
ping host_live : exit code 0
ping host_down : exit code 1
ping host_not_found : exit code 1
windows 7 :
ping host_live : exit code 0
ping host_down : exit code 0
ping host_not_found : exit code 1
( host_not_found : I mean, a hostname not resolveable to IP address )
=== Windows ===
Considering the TcpIp stack and utilities were born under unix and copied from the other vendors / OS, which is the rationale of this different behaviour ?
At the start of my batch scripts, how can I detect if the remote party is down ?
Should I deploy on 1200 clients a custom ping utility ?