I meet a weird problem today. The hosts file on my friend's computer seems not to work now. There're 5 files in the directory,C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc on my computer and there're 6 files on hers. I don't know what's the file 'hosts.msn' ? Though I can see '192.168.2.3 www.fos.com' in her hosts file, when I ping 'www.fos.com ', I can only see 'Request timed out' on the screen.

What you should see is something like this: Pinging 192.168.2.3 with 32 bytes of data: Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. But it's interesting that the ip for www.fos.com is 194.250.182.100 So the questions become: 1] what IP is it pinging? 2] why does HOSTS contain: 192.168.2.3 www.fos.com ? If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Here's how to find out if HOSTS is working: Pick a site, any site, that is NOT in your HOSTS. ping ibm.com result: Pinging ibm.com [129.42.21.99] with 32 bytes of data: Request timed out. The fact that it timed out is beside the point. What's TO the point is that it resolved the name to an IP. Now put this line in your HOSTS: 0.0.0.0 ibm.com and ping again. If you get this: Unknown host ibm.com It's working. If you get the IP, it ain't working. If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

I faced the same problem at work. In our company web-development environment, we are using linux as a webserver and we have one pc with WinXP Pro installed for testing in IE browser. We are used to do the website entry in hosts file (C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) as below. 192.168.0.1 www.website.my This was working nicely before, but now it's not able to show in any browser. If I do proxy-setting in browser and put *.my for bypass address for proxy it's work fine. It was working nicely before.

1] It's not the same problem. So if you're looking for help a new thread is better. 2] I hope you can manage to follow through, unlike the OP. If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2