Rick Strahl has this as part of his wwIPStuff utilities. However, sometimes the remote machine is not running IIS (e.g. NT Wrksta used as a file server but no PWS) and you may want to know if it exists.

>If the COM server is also running IIS, you also might want to try making a small web page with the text "This Server is Available.", and using wininet.dll point your VFP app to that page before making a call. Advatages of doing it this way is (1) you use built-in Win32 features with HOWTOs aplenty on the UT (2) not all firewalls accept ICMP packets (3) you can use the web server logging features to know who came in and when; hmm, maybe even get fancy and put a form on the web site and have your VFP app HTTP-POST the call it is about to make each time so you can really monitor the COM traffic from a non-VFP-point-of-view.
>
>Anyway, I think an HTTP GET or POST might fail quicker than a (normally synchronous?) DCOM call.
>
>
>
>>Another option may be to create your own Ping utility. This wouild generate a small amount of network traffic. If you search in the MSDN help under Entrire COlelction for "Ping sample (Winsock SOCK_RAW echo)", it may help.