I've spent a bit of time searching this, but I wanted to pose the question fresh as well: do you know of a relatively simple way of monitoring basic server status from one's desktop? I'm hoping for something along the lines of a simple script that will ping the server every 2-3 minutes, and raise an alert or send an email if there's no response for a certain period; perhaps after 5-10 minutes of non-responsiveness.

I've taken a look at Nagios, but it appears that this is only for Linux/Unix, and the desktop from which I'll be monitoring the server is a pc(xp).

I'm hoping that someone's done something similar recently, and will be able to point me in the direction of a good reference for writing such a script, and/or finding a pre-written script to customize.

Hopefully this isn't a bothersome question, and thanks to all who reply.