Ping and Tracert not recognized commands?

If I have a customer who's XP machine claims that tracert and ping are not recognized commands...

...then where to do I go to re-enable the service that turns these commands back on?

I completely know the answers (yes answers, as theres often more than one solution or reason for a problem in Windows) to this question, but given the identity of the poster, I feel no inclination to post the answers.

Go me.

Some humble suggestions (this could happen for a wide variety of reasons):

From the command line ->
cd c:\windows [or d:\windows, etc. depending on system structure]
dir ping*.exe /S /P

Should bring up all versions of ping that the user has installed. Tell him/her to use any of the ones listed. Same goes for tracert.exe. If none are listed, they have been removed (for some reason) and need to be reinstalled.

It is also possible that the directory/ies of ping.exe and tracert.exe have been removed from PATH (check this under control panel->system->advanced->environment variables), which of course means they can only be executed when the directory in which they are placed is the working directory.

HobbsTiger1 said:

I completely know the answers (yes answers, as theres often more than one solution or reason for a problem in Windows) to this question, but given the identity of the poster, I feel no inclination to post the answers.

Go me.

That's cold, Obi-Wan...

Kristian - Thankx man, looks like someone deleted them. Strange.

Everyone should delete ping and tracert because they allow terrorists to get information about your computer and possibly injure your family.

AndrewB said:

Everyone should delete ping and tracert because they allow terrorists to get information about your computer and possibly injure your family.

Good...maybe the terrorists will ping Johnny Cutshimself the next time he logs onto livejournal to complain about his nazi parents and send someone who really wants to commit suicide over to his house and blow them all sky high.

Ya maybe...

AndrewB said:

Everyone should delete ping and tracert because they allow terrorists to get information about your computer and possibly injure your family.

There's a conspiracy behind PING And TRACERT!!!

Closed since discussion of the actual topic appears to have both ended and been resolved.