Sentinel

Sentinel is a tiny and portable software program that enables you to seamlessly test you TCP communication and always keep track of your status.

It comes loaded with a bunch of intuitive options that be easily handled by all types of users, even those less experienced with networking utilities.

Since there is no setup pack involved, you can drop the app files anywhere on the disk and just click the executable to launch Sentinel. Another option is to save it to a USB flash drive to be able to run it on any computer with minimum effort and no previous installers. More importantly, it doesn't modify the Windows registry settings.

Wrapped up in a user-friendly interface made from a common window that shows all options available, the utility lets you specify the client's IP address and port number to connect to.

Once you indicate the server's port number, you can enter the message you want to send and check out the reply. There are no other noteworthy options provided by Sentinel. Unfortunately, it doesn't implement an option for logging history with its activity.

The tool didn't put a strain on the overall performance of the machine throughout our evaluation, thanks to the fact that it needed low CPU and RAM to work properly. However, it popped up an error dialog in several cases when we attempted to establish the connection.

We should also take into consideration the fact that Sentinel hasn't been updated for a long time. Nevertheless, you can test it for yourself, since it's free.