Where is "Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool"?

there aren't even vista 64 bit drivers for this modem, unfortunately. I do remember that when I tried out the Windowsw 7 beta, the modem was detected as the same card that XP detected it as before I installed the proper drivers. the default "generic" driver did work after a fashion, but there were some issues. I don't know if 64 bit windows would also have the ability to detect the modem and install the same 64 bit version of the generic driver. With my luck it would show up in device manager as an unknown (or unsupported) device.

Okay, so I've read through this thread, and didn't exactly find what I was looking for.  I did see that someone else (forget who now) was looking for this tool because of an easy connect problem. 

Is there anyway to test/see if the Remote Assistance servers are down?  I'm trying to connect to a clients computer (Win 7 Pro) with my Win 7 HP machine using Easy Connect.  Her computer is saved in the list, because we've done this before.  Now my machine reports that it can not connect to the global peer-to-peer network (Hence, how I landed here, since it referenced this tool.)  As long as I've used XP and Vista, I've never heard of hit, but also have never had to look for it either. 

So, easy connect doesn't work... okay.  I have her email me an invitation.  I open it on one of my XP machines (this one smokes the Win 7 box) and I can not connect this way either (once again, we've done this before too!)  I know it's not my Gateway, Router, or any of my wireless AP's or switches, since all of this hardware was in place last time I had used either one of these methods with the same client.

This is what has changed:  The XP machine and the Win 7 machine exchanged places in the house, and thus have exchanged NIC's.  XP machine had Belkin N1 Desktop Card, Win 7 had Realtec Gb card.  That is the only physical layer difference since my last successful connections.

Any input on this is appreciated, even if it's just a link to another thread that holds the answers that I seek.

I just looked up the modem that is I chose for my XP desktop, and my Zoom PCI plus 56k (2920) hardware based modem is not windows 7 compatible! all their other modems that are either softmodems or are controllerless are still compatible tho. that is really messe up. I am planning building a new PC soon, and am planning on reusing several components (the MB I have lined up has 3x PCI slots). There seems to be a trend of the both M$ and the hardware industry trying to push consumers away from hardware based PC components. I prefer to have my different parts of my PC (sound, video, networking) do their own work, and not rely on the CPU to do their work for them before passing it back to the different components (video, sound, networking). there is really no reason what so ever why my modem should not be able to work under win7. the only limiting factor that I see is the lack of drivers for zoom. I know for a fact that the modem does work under win7 as I had the modem working while running the last win7 beta when it was released on my Athlon XP desktop (where the modem resides). there 32-bit vista drivers for the modem. maybe someone can provide a reason (other than speculation) as to why there are not any 64-bit drivers for hardware based cards.

This is offhand, I'm actually looking to fix an Easy Connect issue (That I wasn't having before.)  What seems to work sometimes is using a Vista Driver for Win 7.  Vista seems to be the unsung hero (and maybe more useful) as an upgrade tool when migrating from XP to Win 7.  I have so far done 2 upgrades on 2 very different systems.  Had problems with both, but enough of Vista loaded that when I did "clean" installs of 7 without formatting, Win 7 pulled all of the hardware drivers from the Windows.old folder.  This came in handy, since these were custom build machines, built by someone else.

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Since the tool is no longer available, does anyone know how I can enable Peer-to-Peer service so my network which is running two computers both with Windows 7, will work with Homegroup?

Can't you go into the services screen and turn it on?

I.e. click on start and in the search box in win7, type 'services', and see if something called "windows services management" comes up.

There are a few services related to peer-to-peer networking.  Unfortunately, I've never used them (I use an old PC running linux to run a local domain and enable sharing that way).

But some services I see are 'HomeGroup Provider', 'HomeGroup Listener', 'Peer Name Resolution Protocol', 'Peer Networking Grouping', Peer Networking Identity Manager',  and  'PNRP Machine Name Publication Service'.  Might try enabling those and see what happens... Also if you bring up "Help and Support" from the start menu, and search for peer networking, you might find some topics of interest or help.

@Cybot: There is a reason why your custom modem is not compatible with Win7 -- the maker of the modem is not supporting it.  This isn't Microsoft's fault.

If you need a safe modem that will be OS and hardware independent and do its own work, go for an external modem that plugs into your computer's serial port.

As long as it is embedded in the computer, it is dependent on both the hardware and the OS.

External modems aren't controller-less -- they have the controller in the modem and aren't dependent on your computer, whereas the one you have is dependent on the computer for all it's resources -- so if you want to have HW that does it's wown work for a modem -- go external.

Like you, I also go for "component" PC-design.  With separate cards for video and networking.   It would be nice to have an external option for video, since I can't upgrade my video card due to newer (faster) cards requiring a new version of PCI-Express.  I have mostly settled with an external sound system using my video card's HDMI output.  But interestingly enough, I use MS's audio drivers, instead of the vendor (Nvidia) audio drivers, because the Vendor's driver files have a bug that won't allow audio output unless you have it associated with another screen.    The MS driver doesn't require me to keep a 2nd monitor (a flat screen TV, really), turned on -- and can drive HDMI sound independently as HDMI was designed.  If you use the Nvidia audio drivers that come with their driver package, it will shut off the sound if it doesn't detect a video monitor.  Big waste of money/electricity. 

So if you want to go with independent stuff, it looks like separate, stand-alone hardware is becoming the way to go and ditching your PC-HW dependent modem for a standalone-external modem would be the way to go.

Remember, if your modem was purchased for XP, that was year 2000.  This is 14 years later.  How many things in your life are usable for >10 years?