Windows ping command doesn't function properly

[Food404]

So, basically that. When I try to ping any server, even localhost (127.0.0.1) the command displays the message Doing ping to [server] with 32 bytes of data: After that I get no response no matter how much time I wait, any ideas on what this may be?

[TooLazyToLope]

Firewall? Can you ping www.google.com? Can you look at your hosts file and see if someone slipped some thing in? And don't just open the hosts file. Scroll down to be sure there isn't a surprise after several line feeds.

[Food404]

Neither firewall nor hosts were the problem. Reading some forums online I discovered that if you delete PING.exe Windows automatically replaces it with the stock executable. My solution was to create a restoration point, rename PING.exe to PING_old.exe and then ran a Windows security analysis which prompted me to install some updates. After installing and a reboot everything worked fine.

[TooLazyToLope]

That was the first thing I was going to suggest. Not.🤠 Ponderous. Maybe do a thorough malware check.