Hosts file not being used by windows explorer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff Newman
  • Start date Start date
J

Jeff Newman

Hello,

I am having some trouble getting my hosts file to be used in Windows XP. I
have modified the file located at C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts to
include a custom host name. Initially, I could not use this new name
anywhere. E.g., if I tried to ping the host at the command line, I would get
an error saying that the host could not be found.

After searching the Internet, I found some posts that suggested disabling
the DNS cache. I did this by disabling the "DNS Client" service. This allowed
me to ping my new host (so the lookup for ping was now using the hosts file).
However I then attempted to use this host name as part of an address for a
remote machine via Windows Explorer, and it still could not find the host. I
verified that the machine was up by manually placing the IP address into
Windows Explorer - everything works fine. The only problem is getting the
translation from hostname (stored in the hosts file) to IP address.

I've done this process on dozens of other machines, and have never had any
issues getting the hosts file read through Windows Explorer. I've never had
to disable the DNS Client service before. Does anyone have any suggestions on
what else I could try to get this to work?

Thanks!
 
Jeff Newman said:
Hello,

I am having some trouble getting my hosts file to be used in Windows XP. I
have modified the file located at C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts to
include a custom host name. Initially, I could not use this new name
anywhere. E.g., if I tried to ping the host at the command line, I would
get
an error saying that the host could not be found.

After searching the Internet, I found some posts that suggested disabling
the DNS cache. I did this by disabling the "DNS Client" service. This
allowed
me to ping my new host (so the lookup for ping was now using the hosts
file).
However I then attempted to use this host name as part of an address for a
remote machine via Windows Explorer, and it still could not find the host.
I
verified that the machine was up by manually placing the IP address into
Windows Explorer - everything works fine. The only problem is getting the
translation from hostname (stored in the hosts file) to IP address.

I've done this process on dozens of other machines, and have never had any
issues getting the hosts file read through Windows Explorer. I've never
had
to disable the DNS Client service before. Does anyone have any suggestions
on
what else I could try to get this to work?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Perhaps you would have a better experience if you used Internet Explorer
instead of Windows Explorer.

Jim
 
Jim said:
Perhaps you would have a better experience if you used Internet Explorer
instead of Windows Explorer.

Jim
Click to expand...

I am attempting to access a remote file system. technically a linux box
running samba. So I definitely want to use Windows explorer (not IE). For
some reason explorer is refusing to lookup the name in the hosts file.
Everything works fine if I manually enter the IP address instead of the
hostname.
 
Jeff,

I'm having the same issue. This worked fine on my PC just a week ago but
now it is not processing the Hosts file.

Have you found a solution? I'm pretty puzzled, especially since it was
working fine. The only thing that has changed on my PC is a few of
Microsoft's automatic updates.
 
So I just found the solution.

My Hosts file did not have permission for local Users. Somehow this got
modified.

Try this:
1. Open the existing hosts file in notepad.
2. Select all and copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+C)
3. Close the file.
4. Create a new text file.
5. Open the new file in notepad.
6. Paste the info from the clipboard into the file.
7. Save the file as hosts (without any file extension) and overwrite the
existing file.

That should do the trick.
 
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