Which tool tells you the distance, in hops, to the destination computer?

Tracert is the tool that provides the distance to a destination computer measured in hops. When you use Tracert, it sends packets to the destination and records each router (or hop) that the packets pass through on their way to the final destination. By analyzing the response times from these intermediate routers, Tracert generates a list that details how many hops it took to reach the destination, along with the time it took to reach each hop.

This capability makes Tracert particularly useful for diagnosing network issues, identifying where delays may be occurring, and understanding the route that data takes through a network. Pathping also provides hop information, but it is more complex as it combines the functions of Tracert and Ping, offering added insights such as performance metrics over time. However, Tracert specifically focuses on showing the path in terms of hops taken, which directly answers the question.

Other tools like Netstat show network connections and statistics, while Ping checks the accessibility of a networked device by sending ICMP packets but does not track the route or number of hops taken to reach it. Thus, Tracert is the most appropriate choice for this question regarding distance in hops to the destination computer.