JScript for Ping, Renew IP and Network Info / Repair

I was having a frustrating issue where a remote Windows XP computer that I need to Remote Desktop into would occasionally become unresponsive. This issue already required me to drive a number of late-night trips to temporarily remedy the issue. While I've not yet found the root cause, the main issue seems to be that something becomes "disconnected" between the network adapter and the operating system. While the Windows "Status" dialog on the network adapter shows "Connected" and packets being sent and received, I am not even able to ping the default gateway. Windows Firewall is not enabled. The only other suspect software I need to rule out yet is an anti-virus service. Rebooting the computer always helped, but is rather drastic. Choosing the "Repair" option does not work, and shows a message about failing while renewing the IP address. Interestingly, the fastest temporary "fix" I found is to run "ipconfig /release" followed by "ipconfig /renew".

While this computer is probably due for a re-installation, it is not an immediate option. In the meantime, I came up with a Windows Script Host (WSH) script to automatically detect and repair this issue.

Update: The root cause is certainly related to "Symantec Endpoint Protection" 11.0.x (Antivirus). If Symantec is completely removed, the problem disappears. When reinstalled, the problem comes back. The "Network Thread Protection Logs" would show everything being blocked without reason, until reset by an IP renew or a reboot. (The "Rule" cited is either "Block local file sharing", even though it blocks ALL ports - or "Block all other traffic".) At least at one point, this was affecting dozens of desktops. However, Symantec needs to stay per corporate policy...

As previously posted, I chose to use JScript for this task (particularly over VBScript). Everything but the logging is essentially WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) calls. If I hadn't coded for all of the extra logging, the code would have probably been less than half the current size. It basically finds a given network adapter, and attempts to ping the configured default gateway. If unsuccessful, it will perform a DHCP release and renew operation.

/** 
 * @author Mark A. Ziesemer, www.ziesemer.com, 2009-06-25
 */
(function(){
  
  var fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
  var wmi = GetObject("winmgmts://localhost/root/cimv2");
  
  var getNetworkAdapter = function(name){
    var adapters = new Enumerator(wmi.ExecQuery(
      "Select * From Win32_NetworkAdapter Where NetConnectionID='" + name + "'"));
    if(!adapters.atEnd()){
      return adapters.item();
    }
  };
  
  var getAdapterConfig = function(index){
    var configs = new Enumerator(wmi.ExecQuery(
      "Select * From Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration Where Index=" + index));
    if(!configs.atEnd()){
      return configs.item();
    }
  };
  
  var ping = function(host){
    var results = new Enumerator(wmi.ExecQuery(
      "Select * From Win32_PingStatus Where Address = '" + host + "'"));
    if(!results.atEnd()){
      var result = results.item();
      return result.StatusCode;
    }
  };
  
  var logWriter = fso.OpenTextFile("PingTest.log", 8, true);
  try{
    var log = function(msg){
      logWriter.WriteLine(new Date() + " - " + msg);
    };
    
    var adapter = getNetworkAdapter("Local Area Connection");
    if(adapter){
      log("Found network adapter:"
        + "\r\n\tAvailability: " + adapter.Availability
        + "\r\n\tCaption: " + adapter.Caption
        + "\r\n\tConfigManagerErrorCode: " + adapter.ConfigManagerErrorCode
        + "\r\n\tErrorDescription: " + adapter.ErrorDescription
        + "\r\n\tLastErrorCode: " + adapter.LastErrorCode
        + "\r\n\tMACAddress: " + adapter.MACAddress
        + "\r\n\tName: " + adapter.Name
        + "\r\n\tNetConnectionID: " + adapter.NetConnectionID
        + "\r\n\tNetConnectionStatus: " + adapter.NetConnectionStatus
        + "\r\n\tStatus: " + adapter.Status
        + "\r\n\tTimeOfLastReset: " + adapter.TimeOfLastReset);
    }else{
      log("No suitable network adapter found.  Quitting...");
      return;
    }
    
    var adapterConfig = getAdapterConfig(adapter.Index);
    if(adapterConfig){
      log("Found network adapter config:"
        + "\r\n\tIPAddress: " + adapterConfig.IPAddress.toArray()
        + "\r\n\tDefaultIPGateway: " + adapterConfig.DefaultIPGateway.toArray());
    }else{
      log("No suitable network adapter configuration found.  Quitting...");
      return;
    }
    
    var pingResult = ping(adapterConfig.DefaultIPGateway.toArray()[0]);
    log("Ping result: " + pingResult);
    if(pingResult){
      var releaseResult = adapterConfig.ReleaseDHCPLease();
      if(releaseResult){
        log("Unexpected ReleaseDHCPLease() result: " + releaseResult);
        return;
      }
      var renewResult = adapterConfig.RenewDHCPLease();
      if(renewResult){
        log("Unexpected RenewDHCPLease() result: " + renewResult);
        return;
      }
      log("Successfully released and renewed IP: " + adapterConfig.IPAddress.toArray());
    }
  }finally{
    logWriter.WriteLine();
    logWriter.Close();
  }
  
})();

I added it to the Windows Task Scheduler, and set it to run every 5 minutes. While not available through the Windows UI, the schtasks command allows for scheduling as the "SYSTEM" user, assuming you have administrative rights. This eliminates the need for your password, and prevents the job from breaking when you change your password:

> schtasks /create /tn "PingTask" /tr "cscript C:\<path>\PingTest.js" /sc MINUTE /mo 5 /st 00:00:00 /ru System
INFO: The Schedule Task "PingTask" will be created under user name ("NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM").
SUCCESS: The scheduled task "PingTask" has successfully been created.

While the problem detection isn't based on the packet count statistics that I observed from the Windows UI, I thought it would also be useful information to log to see if there is a correlation to the "disconnects". Unfortunately, I couldn't find an easy way to obtain these statistics - either through WMI or the command line. I did find a few places to obtain protocol/transport-level statistics such as TCP, but nothing at the link-layer (Ethernet) level. The only involved discussion I could find on this was this newsgroup posting to microsoft.public.win32.programmer.wmi back from 2006 which implies that these statistics are only available through native code.