Messenger Won't Send to Localhost

[John Miller]

When I attempt to send a broadcast message to all machines on my network, it
fails. If I send a message to a specific machine other than localhost, it
succeeds. Specifically:

net send x.x.x.x message #This works. ('x.x.x.x' is a local client
IP address).
net send clientname message #This works. ('clientname' is a valid local
client name).
net send localhost message #This fails with 'message alias not found'
error.
net send 127.0.0.1 message #This fails with 'message alias not found'
error.
net send * message #This fails with error 123.

Messenger service is started.

My hosts file contains only the single line:

127.0.0.1 localhost

Any ideas what's wrong?

Thanks.

- John

 

[John John - MVP]

I'm guessing that it might be that your router doesn't allow or route
this kind of traffic to the loopback address...

John

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

If you want to send a generic message to the local machine, use this syntax:
net send "%ComputerName%" message.

When you send a message to * then the messenger attempts to send it to the
members of the current Workgroup. Type this command to see the full syntax:
net help send