An administrator is unable to ping anything on the network, as the ping command immediately returns an error. Which of the following commands should the administrator use FIRST to troubleshoot this…

netstat -o displays active network connections and listening ports, which is useful for identifying application-level network issues but not for fundamental IP connectivity problems like an inability to ping.

nslookup is used to query DNS servers for name resolution; while DNS issues can prevent pings to hostnames, an immediate ping error usually points to a more fundamental local configuration problem.

The route command displays or modifies the IP routing table, which is useful for diagnosing issues with reaching specific subnets, but checking the local IP configuration with ipconfig should always precede it when basic connectivity is failing entirely.

The ipconfig command is the fundamental first troubleshooting step for network connectivity issues because it displays the local machine's current TCP/IP configuration, including its IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway. An immediate error from a ping command often indicates a problem with the local network adapter's configuration, which ipconfig can reveal.