In Windows XP SP2 it was a pretty simple case of configuring the security/firewall rules for a selected network interface so that ICMP Echo (PING) requests would be allowed to pass through the firewall. ICMP Echo requests are a pretty standard way of seeing if a machine is up and running … depending on [...]

From an article entitled “Microsoft’s advisories giving clues to hackers” by Ryan Naraine.
Sucks to be Microsoft sometimes …