etc\hosts file is ignored selectively

[Alvaro G. Vicario]

I've found out a problem I've never had before. I use
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file when I need to test a name based
website hosting before changing the domain DNS records. That way I make my
computer believe the site IP is the one I want so I can browse the site with
Explorer and check whether everything is fine.

However, I've just realized it has stopped working. And it's pretty curious
because Windows uses hosts file for loopback addresses (like 127.0.0.1) and
for LAN addresses (like 192.168.0.1) but not for Internet public addresses
(like 216.239.57.99). That makes me thing of:

a) A misconfiguration (where??)
b) A Windows Update patch + Microsoft's weird idea of network security

Any idea of what might be happening?

[Marc Reynolds [MSFT]]

Hi,

A couple of possibilities:

1. You incorrectly entered the records into the Hosts file.
2. You already have a record for the host you are trying to use cached by
the DNS client services. You can flush the DNS client cache by running
"ipconfig /flushdns" at the command line.

Thanks,
Marc Reynolds
Microsoft Technical Support

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