Pinging 192.168.1.x IP address returns wrong IP

I have a couple Windows XP Pro machines with most of the updates.

I have 12 of them at remote locations. I am using Netgear's VPN client to
connect to the main office for the remote locations to enter their
accounting data.

This has worked pretty well on several PCs. However, on a few of them, when
I ping any address at 192.168.1.x, it will return ping results for
10.44.something. I don't remember the exact IP address. I did google the
IP address just in case but I didn't come up with anything good.

I noticed this on two machines after installing the VPN client.
Interestingly enough, it happens both when connected and disconnected from
the VPN.

My first thought was spyware. I used ad aware and spybot on the machines
with caught a little..nothing significant. But didn't fix anything. I used
this WinXP TCP/IP fix program that I found on the web. I like using it for
certain spyware that screws up the protocol in some way. But that did
nothing. I'm pretty good at eradicating most destructive spyware. Somehow
though, I still think it's spyware...but I almost want to blame the VPN
software.

So, I'm stuck. I'm not sure what troubleshooting there is left to do.
Pinging an IP address to me seems like the most basic test to see if TCP/IP
is working. I would assume it's not DNS...since pinging an IP address
shouldn't query a DNS server.

I actually uninstalled the VPN software on one of the machines to make sure
it did the routine without it. It did.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do next?

Thank you!
Gary

"Gary" <tuffboystl@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:%23194SBPmIHA.2396@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>I have a couple Windows XP Pro machines with most of the updates.
>
> I have 12 of them at remote locations. I am using Netgear's VPN client to
> connect to the main office for the remote locations to enter their
> accounting data.
>
> This has worked pretty well on several PCs. However, on a few of them, when
> I ping any address at 192.168.1.x, it will return ping results for
> 10.44.something. I don't remember the exact IP address. I did google the
> IP address just in case but I didn't come up with anything good.
>
> I noticed this on two machines after installing the VPN client.
> Interestingly enough, it happens both when connected and disconnected from
> the VPN.
>
> My first thought was spyware. I used ad aware and spybot on the machines
> with caught a little..nothing significant. But didn't fix anything. I used
> this WinXP TCP/IP fix program that I found on the web. I like using it for
> certain spyware that screws up the protocol in some way. But that did
> nothing. I'm pretty good at eradicating most destructive spyware. Somehow
> though, I still think it's spyware...but I almost want to blame the VPN
> software.
>
> So, I'm stuck. I'm not sure what troubleshooting there is left to do.
> Pinging an IP address to me seems like the most basic test to see if TCP/IP
> is working. I would assume it's not DNS...since pinging an IP address
> shouldn't query a DNS server.
>
> I actually uninstalled the VPN software on one of the machines to make sure
> it did the routine without it. It did.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do next?
>
> Thank you!
> Gary

Reserved IP addresses for private networks

10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 to 172.15.255.255
192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255