How do you determine if an Internet connection is available for your WinForms App?

Question

What is the best way to determine whether there is an available Internet connection for a WinForms app. (Programatically of course) I want to disable/hide certain functions

Answer 1

Ping google.com (or a list of well-known hosts) or try actually performing one of the functions (in a structural sense) for which your application requires Internet connectivity. There is no way, on any operating system, to truly determine whether or not Internet connectivity is functional without actually trying to communicate, as opposed to the operating system's view on what constitutes "available".