Windows hosts file not working
by Frank Kim on Aug.10, 2005, under Windows
On Windows you can manually match hostnames to IP addresses using the hosts file located in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc. An example of a hosts file:
127.0.0.1 localhost #10.22.1.18 foo foo.bar.ca 16.17.18.19 toronto 16.17.18.125 boston
If you find that the contents of the hosts file are not being picked up by Windows it might be because the file is corrupted though the corruption is not evident in your editor. The best thing to do is to delete or move that file and create a brand new hosts file and hopefully the contents of this hosts file will be picked up by Windows.
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June 3rd, 2008 on 11:32 AM
Holy smokes, this worked great for me. Thank you!
December 9th, 2008 on 7:49 AM
Yes Sir, thank you very much
February 2nd, 2010 on 6:55 AM
This works !!!!!!!!! , just copy paste the hosta file,ctrl+A remove all the content and write wt u want , clear cache if you are using IE ‘Done’
July 14th, 2010 on 9:40 AM
Worked for me, many thanks!
September 20th, 2010 on 12:59 PM
Thanks so much for posting it, it helped me a million!
March 27th, 2011 on 2:07 AM
Worked for me too – thanks!
May 30th, 2011 on 4:29 AM
!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another reason is incorrect file access security settings. (maybe because file-recreation, 3rd party programs access etc.)
re-creating hosts file did not solved my problem.
here is another working solution
right clicked hosts file
open “security” tab
make sure that the users/groups “SYSTEM”, “Administrators”, “Users”(read only access) are there; add them if they are not there.
now Windows reads and obeys the hosts file!
(I have tested on xp, I was an administrator but “Users” was not there and windows was not reading the hosts file)
May 30th, 2011 on 4:37 AM
In addition to my previous comment:
re-creating the file not worked for me because I have re-created the file on my desktop and copied to its location. But since it is my desktop, “Users” are not added to access security settings.
Nevertheless, we can check file security settings, before trying to re-create it IMHO.
January 15th, 2012 on 8:56 PM
Hi Grand,
Thanks for the suggestion. It worked for me.
Regards.
Jones