NET SEND not working as expected

[MarkDraa]

Sorry to bother you with such a trivial matter, but it's driving me crazy. While at the fileserver (running Win2K, SP4 and Exchange2K, SP3), logged on as adminstrator, I'd like to send a quick message to an individual computer on my network that will popup over any existing windows. I know NET SEND is supposed to work, and, if I choose to send the message to ALL computers on the network, like this:

NET SEND * "This is a test"

It works fine. When I try to send it to an individual computer, it doesn't work. I get the message "The message alias could not be found on the network".

According to the help text for NET SEND, you are supposed to be able to use either the Computer Name, User Name or Messaging Name. If there is a space in the name, surrounding it with quotes should make it work.

OK, so if I look at my own user definition on the server in Active Directory Users and Computers, I see that my username is "John Smith" (uh, name changed to protect the ignorant!). My display name is "John", my user logon name is John@mydomain.local, and my pre-windows 2000 user logon name is "DOMAIN\john". My exchange alias is "john". If I just look at the list of users under Active Directory Users and Computers, I'm listed as "John Smith". If I go into Computer Management on the server and look for active sessions, my user name is listed as "JOHN", and my workstation computer is listed as "123-100".

On my XP-Pro (SP1) workstation under the System Properties, "Computer Name" tab, my Computer Description is "John Smith", and my Full computer name is "123-100.Mydomain.local"

I've checked and both the server and my workstation are running the messenger service.

I have tried:

net send John "This is a test"
net send John This is a test
net send "John Smith" "This is a test"
net send "John Smith" This is a test
net send john@mydomain.local "This is a test"
net send john@mydomain.local This is a test
net send DOMAIN\John This is a test
net send DOMAIN\John "This is a test"
net send "DOMAIN\John" "This is a test"
net send "DOMAIN\John" This is a test
net send john "This is a test"
net send john This is a test
net send 123-100 This is a test
net send 123-100 "This is a test"
net send "123-100" This is a test
net send "123-100" "This is a test"
net send "123-100.Mydomain.local" "This is a test"
net send 123-100.Mydomain.local "This is a test"

All of these attempts are met with the same "The message alias could not be found on the network" error.

I checked again, and my workstation (along with everyone else who is running the messenger service on their workstation) gets the popup when I send it to everyone using

net send * "This is a test"

What in the fritz am I doing wrong here?[b/]

Thanks!

 

[GeneralNerd]

Try this it should work
NET SEND /USERS username "message"

 

[MarkDraa]

When I try

NET SEND /USERS username "message"

The system tries to send the message to each XP workstation and reports the following:

An error occurred while sending a message to computername1

An error occurred while sending a message to computername2

etc. until it goes through all XP workstations.

EXCEPT ONE. That particular XP workstation is getting the message!

The help text suggests that the "/USERS" switch does NOT take arguements and is meant to "send a message to all users connected to the server".

Although with this switch, no attempt is made to send the message to any of the W98 boxes.

Thanks, though.

 

[GRMorris]

As I recall, to send a message to everyone on the domain the format would be:

NET SEND <DOMAIN NAME> MESSAGE

So for the Domain &quot;TFG&quot; you would use:

NET SEND TFG THIS IS A TEST

Hope that helped.
Russell.

 

[MarkDraa]

Yes, you are correct, the DOMAIN and /USERS options are similar. My problem is not sending to everyone (that works fine when I specify the domain name), it's sending to just one computer.

 

[GRMorris]

My apologies, I did not read your original post thoroughly enough.

If you attempt to send a message to a machine using the computer name instead of the user name, does this work?

 

[WyldeCarde]

I would check to make sure the messenger service is running on the machine(s)

 

[SMO6]

Hey buddy. Sounds as if DNS and or WINS may not be working. The net send command may not even use DNS for all we know so you might look into that. So once you know for sure what service the command uses, is the service setup correctly?

Try sending the message to an IP address. If this doesnt work and you sent it to an address that exists on your LAN then perhaps something has gone TU (tits up) in the OS on that particular machine.

Checked the DNS and WINS config on your machine?

Good luck.

 

[TheMac28nearly]

As far as i was aware you just use your AD username, eg net send johns &quot;this is a test&quot;

If your networking is working, i.e. DNS if your running AD, then that should work ok

 

[AndiusMaximus]

In dos command prompt type

net view |more

this will give a list of names on the domain

You should see the login name John Smith or JS depending how it's setup

then type

net send JS test

or

net send johnsmith test

 

[ibrahims]

Try This:

net send {name | * | /Domain[:name]| /USERS} message

Ibrahims

 

[MarkDraa]

>In dos command prompt type
>
>net view |more
>
>this will give a list of names on the domain

When I do this, I see a list containing entries like this:

Server Name Remark
\\390-675 John Smith

>You should see the login name John Smith or JS depending >how it's setup

390-675 is the Computer Name, and John Smith is the Computer Description

>then type
>net send JS test
>or
>net send johnsmith test

If I type 'net send \\390-675 test', I get

The syntax of this command is:

NET SEND {name | * | /DOMAIN[:name] | /USERS} message

If I type 'net send John Smith test, I get

An error occurred while sending a message to JOHN.
The message alias could not be found on the network.

Ibrahms, in his post above, asks me to type

'net send {name | * | /Domain[:name]| /USERS} message'

Ok, so I type

net send {John Smith | * | /Domain[:mydomain]| /USERS} test

and I get

'*' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or batch file.

Ok, maybe the syntax really translates to:

net send {name | 390-675 | /Domain[:mydomain]| /USERS} test

This gives me:

'390-675' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or batch file.

I'm willing to try any other suggestions, but so far, it much easier to call the user!

Thx,

Mark

 

[AndiusMaximus]

Okay try this exactly how you see it, even copy and paste directly in run command or type exactly like this in dos prompt. Pretty sure it will work, Good Luck

net send 390-675 Please work!!

 

[ricpinto]

Did you follow UKE tip . . . Messenger service must be started first on the workstation(the PC that can't receive your message) otherwise 'net send' is no use for that particular PC.

For win9x run the program winpopup.exe first.

 

[MarkDraa]

1. I checked for the Messenger service on the workstation running WinXP. It is running.

2. net send 390-675 Please work!! returns the following:

An error occurred while sending a message to 390-675.
The message alias could not be found on the network.
More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 2273

which says that I either misspelled the computer name or the target computer is busy - please try again later.

Sending to all workstations using NET SEND * Test
still works.

Maybe I need to face my server towards Redmond and repeat some kind of mantra?

 

[MichaelDell]

Have you tried just using the IP of the PC you want to send it to? This will tell whether you are having name resolution issues or not, especially since the net send * &quot;message&quot; works.

 

[MarkDraa]

Yes, that makes sense. How do I do that, precisely?

net send 192.168.0.50 test

doesn't work. I *can* ping the workstation from the server using the IP.

Thx

 

[AndiusMaximus]

These things may be a liitle silly to try, but after reading all the tips provided I think most bases have been covered.

Start and then stop messenger services. Reasoning is I was moving my laptop around the other day from one outlet to another and then net send stopped working, I stopped and then started messenger again and it worked, spooky. So do this to both the machine you want to send and the machine you send from.

Next thing is to provide an additional name for the computer you are trying to send to

do this in dos prompt on the computer at question (390-675) by typing

net name Redmond

check if the name is added by typing

net name

you should see

Name
-----------------------------------------------
390-675
Redmond
The command completed successfully


if you can net send to send yourself, good chance is it will work so to do a net send from newly named redmond

net send Redmond test

Good Luck. No more tips from me on this topic, I'm spent.