Which troubleshooting utility expects a reply when it sends a message to another computer?

The utility that expects a reply when it sends a message to another computer is the one that operates on the premise of sending Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo requests and waiting for responses, which is precisely what Ping does. When a Ping command is executed, it sends a small packet of data to the specified IP address and then awaits an echo reply from that address. This helps in determining whether the target machine is reachable over the network and provides valuable information about the round-trip time for messages sent to the destination.

Other utility choices serve different purposes: Tracert is used to trace the route packets take to reach a destination, providing insight into each hop along the way but does not wait for a specific reply from the destination in the way that Ping does. Ipconfig displays network configuration details of the local machine, such as IP address and subnet mask, without sending messages across the network. Netstat is used to display active connections, listening ports, and routing tables, which provides information on the state of network connections rather than performing active tests of communication paths.