What is the easiest way to edit the hosts file on Windows as admin?

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 11:58:55 +0000 (UTC), Lionel Muller
wrote:

For alt.comp.os.windows-10 Lionel Muller wrote:

The solution we came up with, together (mostly re-purposed from the
command-as-admin thread) is a GENERAL solution to such problems, whether
you can see that from inside your closed-minded box or not.

BTW, if it was you who had suggested the rather elegant solution to the
command-as-admin problem, then you DID know the solution to the problem!

Thank you. ;-)

Just a friendly reminder that people aren't obligated to answer your
questions here on Usenet. I've provided input to more than a few of your
questions (spread across your multiple nyms), but I feel no pressure to
jump into every single thing that comes along. I see that you're fond of
claiming that no one knew the answer, or that your question was directed
to only experts, but it's equally likely that some just didn't want to
engage, for whatever reason. Hope that makes sense.

For alt.comp.os.windows-10 Nomen Nescio wrote:


Amazing thread. And just to edit HOSTS.

For me a simple approach works.

Run Notepad as Administrator. Point it to HOSTS. Edit. Save. Done.

You missed the point completely.
Nobody ever had a problem editing the HOSTS file.
Nobody.

This thread is not and never was about just editing the hosts file.
Anyone can do that.

Even you.

For alt.comp.os.windows-10 Char Jackson wrote:


BTW, if it was you who had suggested the rather elegant solution to the
command-as-admin problem, then you DID know the solution to the problem!

Thank you. ;-)

Just a friendly reminder that people aren't obligated to answer your
questions here on Usenet. I've provided input to more than a few of your
questions (spread across your multiple nyms), but I feel no pressure to
jump into every single thing that comes along. I see that you're fond of
claiming that no one knew the answer, or that your question was directed
to only experts, but it's equally likely that some just didn't want to
engage, for whatever reason. Hope that makes sense.

I thank everyone in the group for helping solve these issues which are not
documented anywhere (AFAIK) so we're breaking new ground in solving them.

You'll also notice that I give back to the group, and that I read every
post, and I try to respond to most posts, and that I stay on topic (if
possible) and that I write up and test all viable suggestions, etc.

I'm a good Usenet citizen that way.

In fact, the instant command-as-admin trick is a wonderful combination of
three separate Windows tricks which I've been using almost every day in the
weeks since we all came up with it together.

a. shortcut as admin
b. cmd.exe /K (or /C)
c. App Paths registry key

Likewise, this ability to instantly edit as admin a file that has no
default editor is useful when it's needed, and which required the same
three tricks, combined in a slightly different fashion to suit the need.

Both hacks work great now as "commands" (even sans a PATH variable edit):
Start Run cmda
Start Run hosts
Where the advantage of the "command" is that it doesn't clutter anything.

If we want, we can also make the shortcuts part of our cascaded menus:
Start Programs cmda(.lnk)
Start Programs hosts(.lnk)

I don't think I could possibly ask to make either one any more efficient
than we made it, together.

On 12/07/2017 18:54, Lionel Muller wrote:

Just the first hosts file above has over fourteen thousand domains
blocked.
14,000? Do you do anything for living?

Do you really want me to list all fourteen thousand in this response?

No. what I need is people should show some common sense. Nobody in
their right mind would visit all those 14,000 websites. In fact I
haven't visited that many websites in my life!!!!!!!


Based on that question, I think it may be that you completely
misunderstand
that it takes only a second or two to download a hosts file and to
replace
your original hosts file with that downloaded host file.

Not misunderstood at all. what I would expect from people like you who
are obsessed with all things security is to use latest operating system
and latest Thunderbird and latest browsers which have enhanced security
features built into them. You are using:

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.14) Gecko/20071210 Thunderbird/1.5.0.14

You are well behind time and you are still bothered with security!!!!!!!.




--
With over 500 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

For alt.comp.os.windows-10 Good Guy wrote:

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 22:35:29 +0100, Good Guy
wrote:
No. what I need is people should show some common sense. Nobody in
their right mind would visit all those 14,000 websites. In fact I
haven't visited that many websites in my life!!!!!!!

That's a bit like saying you don't need an airbag in your car because you
haven't ever had a car accident in your life.

Not misunderstood at all. what I would expect from people like you who
are obsessed with all things security is to use latest operating system
and latest Thunderbird and latest browsers which have enhanced security
features built into them. You are using:

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.14) Gecko/20071210 Thunderbird/1.5.0.14

You are well behind time and you are still bothered with security!!!!!!!.

Heh heh heh ... given I'm a privacy freak, do you really think that's my
actual user agent?

Do my headers look better to you now that they're copied from yours?

For alt.comp.os.windows-10 Good Guy wrote:


User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.14) Gecko/20071210 Thunderbird/1.5.0.14
You are well behind time and you are still bothered with security!!!!!!!.

I've got your nntp server, time zone, and user agent correct this time.
a. nntp server = mixmin
b. time zone = +1
c. user agent = User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.1.0

I don't think I have the skill set to match your posting-host though:
d. host = posting-host="8581f91db10214d489d4bb137de66daa8363353e"

Worse, I don't know enough about content-type to match this properly:
e. Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------1EA674783393ACDB00CD47BC"

When I first tried matching that content type exactly, the body of the
message disappeared.

I can always learn from you.
Do you know how to match a "multipart/alternative" content type header?

What do you do to get that content-type header anyway?

Sam Hill wrote:
On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 10:55:41 -0400, Dave \"Crash\" Dummy wrote:

Mayayana wrote:
** Posted in VBS group from a HOSTS file discussion in Win10 group.
**
What is the name of the Win10 group? My search of Usenet group names for
"win10" comes up empty. I can use all the help I can get with Windows
10!

Take a closer look at the header of the message you replied to (and this
one as well)- specifically the "Newsgroups" header item.

Ah. I should have looked there. Rookie mistake. Thanks!
--
Crash

"Celibacy is the worst form of self-abuse."
~ Peter De Vries ~

Mayayana wrote:
"Dave "Crash" Dummy" wrote

| What is the name of the Win10 group? My search of Usenet group
names for | "win10" comes up empty. I can use all the help I can get
with Windows 10!

Don't you see it in your reply?

alt.comp.os.windows-10

There's no MS group, as they abandoned their usenet servers and
switched over to the moderated Web forums before Win10 came out. I
get this group through Eternal September. It should be provided by
most servers.

Yeah, it was a sad day when MS abandoned NNTP. I guess it didn't give
them enough control and they couldn't sell ads. I hate web based forums.

I am subscribed to Eternal September and found the Windows-10 group. Thanks!
--
Crash

I take pride in my humility.

On 11/07/2017 15:34, Char Jackson wrote:

In another post just now, before I saw this one, I asked about the kinds
of edits you make in a typical day.

Here's a sample edit I made just now to my HOSTS file:

# Block eRightSoft SUPER's installer spyware/crapware downloads
# and application expiration checks:
127.0.0.1 erightsoft.com
127.0.0.1 erightsoft.info
127.0.0.1 erightsoft.net
127.0.0.1 erightsoft.org
127.0.0.1 www.erightsoft.com
127.0.0.1 www.erightsoft.info
127.0.0.1 www.erightsoft.net
127.0.0.1 www.erightsoft.org
127.0.0.1 astranorth.blogdns.co

I got that from this web page:
https://www.videohelp.com/software/S...ments#comments

The reason I was at that web page is that I want to put a song into my
DeVeDe menus which is an m4a soundtrack that I downloaded off the net, but
where Audacity can't handle it and where DeVeDe wants an ogg file anyway,
so I need to convert the m4a to ogg and then crop it with Audacity.

Super is what I had used for years (until they went bundleware) so I was
looking for the older version of super without bundleware and then I saw
this recommendation, so, while I was there, it was a single click to open
the hosts file and than paste that so that if I do accidentally get a
version of Super with bundleware, it won't be able to phone home).

Anyway, without a hiccup, in a single press, I was able to add those lines
to my HOSTS file, and move on with searching for a good OLDER version of
Super.

Of course, I could just use my Windows XP archives of all my installers,
but generally I'm lazy and just download the latest version or, in the case
of super, the latest good version sans bundleware.

Lionel Muller wrote:
On 11/07/2017 15:34, Char Jackson wrote:

In another post just now, before I saw this one, I asked about the kinds
of edits you make in a typical day.

Here's a sample edit I made just now to my HOSTS file:

# Block eRightSoft SUPER's installer spyware/crapware downloads
# and application expiration checks:
127.0.0.1 erightsoft.com
127.0.0.1 erightsoft.info
127.0.0.1 erightsoft.net
127.0.0.1 erightsoft.org
127.0.0.1 www.erightsoft.com
127.0.0.1 www.erightsoft.info
127.0.0.1 www.erightsoft.net
127.0.0.1 www.erightsoft.org
127.0.0.1 astranorth.blogdns.co

I got that from this web page:
https://www.videohelp.com/software/S...ments#comments

The reason I was at that web page is that I want to put a song into my
DeVeDe menus which is an m4a soundtrack that I downloaded off the net, but
where Audacity can't handle it and where DeVeDe wants an ogg file anyway,
so I need to convert the m4a to ogg and then crop it with Audacity.

Super is what I had used for years (until they went bundleware) so I was
looking for the older version of super without bundleware and then I saw
this recommendation, so, while I was there, it was a single click to open
the hosts file and than paste that so that if I do accidentally get a
version of Super with bundleware, it won't be able to phone home).

Anyway, without a hiccup, in a single press, I was able to add those lines
to my HOSTS file, and move on with searching for a good OLDER version of
Super.
Of course, I could just use my Windows XP archives of all my installers,
but generally I'm lazy and just download the latest version or, in the case
of super, the latest good version sans bundleware.



You can reduce a step.

http://www.audacityteam.org/about/features/

"Import and Export

Import and export AC3, M4A/M4R (AAC) ---
and WMA with the optional FFmpeg library
(this also supports import of audio from video files).

I see a ZIP of some FFMPEG files here, including
avcodec-xx.dll. Apparently you still need the LAME
solution for MP3 output (which would be a separate
addition).

http://lame.buanzo.org/#lamewindl

So with a little work, you might get your .ogg directly.

I'd just use a full build of ffmpeg to do this,
but this might be marginally easier in the long run.

Paul

On 13/07/2017 23:10, Paul wrote:

So with a little work, you might get your .ogg directly.

Too bad I saw this too late.
Thanks for the advice.

I got it done by a trial and error method, where I was surprised how many
programs failed to convert the 2-1/2 hour Apple m4a video soundtrack into
an ogg audio file suitable to use for a 50-second menu track in DeVeDe.

Programs I tried were Super (the last known good version which is build 42
from November 7, 2010), iSkysoft iMedia Converter trialware, HandBrake,
Avidemux, Any Audio Converter, and Audacity.

In the end, what worked, surprisingly, was the iSkysoft iMedia Converter
trialware, which only converted the first 1/3 of the m4a to wav, but for
me, that was fine since I only needed the first minute of the 2-1/2 hour
soundtrack. Then I read the wav into Audacity and then snipped it to a
minute, to create a 1-minute soundtrack ogg audio file, which is what I fed
DeVeDe for the background music on the menus.

That iSkysoft IMedia Converter was sneaky though, because they don't tell
you it's trialware until you use it (which turned out ok for me), but
worse, when you install it, the directory has to exist (what's with that?)
and it phones home through the installer (not a browser) and then when you
start it, it phones home again (this time through a browser) to
https://www.iskysoft.us/install/vide...ml?act=install
and even then, CCleaner shows that it adds a startup item and two context
menus (note the misspelling):
1. HKLM:Run DelaypluginInstall Shenzhen Yi Xing Investment Co., Ltd.
C:\ProgramData\iSkysoft\Video Converter Ultimate\DelayPluginI.exe
2. HKLM:Run iSkysoft Helper Compact.exe iSkySof C:\Program Files
(x86)\Common Files\iSkysoft\iSkysoft Helper Compact\ISHelper.exe
3. File iSkysoftVideoConverterFileOpreation C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\ISCM64.dll
In CCleaner, there are two things to uninstall:
iSkysoft Helper Compact 2.5.2 (6.61MB)
iSkysoft IMedia Converter Deluxe (Build 9.0.0.1) (183MB)
When you run the uninstaller inside CCleaner for both they say
"Some elements could not be removed. These can be removed manually."
And, after you uninstall, it phones home again at the end of the uninstall!
https://www.iskysoft.us/uninstall/vi...r-ultimate.htm
And even then, you have to manually delete three directories in
"ProgramData"
C:\ProgramData\iSkysoft
C:\ProgramData\iSkysoft iMedia Converter Deluxe
C:\ProgramData\iSkysoft Video Converter Ultimate
And you have to manually remove the directories (including an executable)
at
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\iSkysoft\iSkysoft Helper Compact\
CBSCreateVC.dll
CBSProductsInfo.dll
DAQExp.dll
ISHelper.exe
Which say you can't delete them because they're open in iSkysoft Studio
which means a service must be running even after uninstalling them.
And it still leaves the DLL file located at
C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\ISCM64.dll
which also won't delete, saying it's in use.
This doesn't even mention all the registry keys left behind, such as
HKCR\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\iSkysoftVideoCo nverterFileOpreation\
(note the typo)
And even after rebooting, there was still stuff in the registry:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run \
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\iSkysoft\iSkysoft Helper
Compact\ISHelper.exe

So I would not recommend this program for anyone unless you absolutely
needed it to convert a long mp4 into a short wav file.

What is "Program Data" for anyway?
And is that DLL a DLL it put there?

I have to look this up but clearly it's a lousy program that I can't
recommend to anyone since it's so sneaky.

On 13/07/2017 23:10, Paul wrote:

So with a little work, you might get your .ogg directly.

Too bad I saw this too late.
Thanks for the advice.

I got it done by a trial and error method, where I was surprised how many
programs failed to convert the 2-1/2 hour Apple m4a video soundtrack into
an ogg audio file suitable to use for a 50-second menu track in DeVeDe.

Programs I tried were Super (the last known good version which is build 42
from November 7, 2010), iSkysoft iMedia Converter trialware, HandBrake,
Avidemux, Any Audio Converter, and Audacity.

In the end, what worked, surprisingly, was the iSkysoft iMedia Converter
trialware, which only converted the first 1/3 of the m4a to wav, but for
me, that was fine since I only needed the first minute of the 2-1/2 hour
soundtrack. Then I read the wav into Audacity and then snipped it to a
minute, to create a 1-minute soundtrack ogg audio file, which is what I fed
DeVeDe for the background music on the menus.

That iSkysoft IMedia Converter was sneaky though, because they don't tell
you it's trialware until you use it (which turned out ok for me), but
worse, when you install it, the directory has to exist (what's with that?)
and it phones home through the installer (not a browser) and then when you
start it, it phones home again (this time through a browser) to
https://www.iskysoft.us/install/vide...ml?act=install
and even then, CCleaner shows that it adds a startup item and two context
menus (note the misspelling):
1. HKLM:Run DelaypluginInstall Shenzhen Yi Xing Investment Co., Ltd.
C:\ProgramData\iSkysoft\Video Converter Ultimate\DelayPluginI.exe
2. HKLM:Run iSkysoft Helper Compact.exe iSkySof C:\Program Files
(x86)\Common Files\iSkysoft\iSkysoft Helper Compact\ISHelper.exe
3. File iSkysoftVideoConverterFileOpreation C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\ISCM64.dll
In CCleaner, there are two things to uninstall:
iSkysoft Helper Compact 2.5.2 (6.61MB)
iSkysoft IMedia Converter Deluxe (Build 9.0.0.1) (183MB)
When you run the uninstaller inside CCleaner for both they say
"Some elements could not be removed. These can be removed manually."
And, after you uninstall, it phones home again at the end of the uninstall!
https://www.iskysoft.us/uninstall/vi...r-ultimate.htm
And even then, you have to manually delete three directories in
"ProgramData"
C:\ProgramData\iSkysoft
C:\ProgramData\iSkysoft iMedia Converter Deluxe
C:\ProgramData\iSkysoft Video Converter Ultimate
And you have to manually remove the directories (including an executable)
at
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\iSkysoft\iSkysoft Helper Compact\
CBSCreateVC.dll
CBSProductsInfo.dll
DAQExp.dll
ISHelper.exe
Which say you can't delete them because they're open in iSkysoft Studio
which means a service must be running even after uninstalling them.
And it still leaves the DLL file located at
C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\ISCM64.dll
which also won't delete, saying it's in use.
This doesn't even mention all the registry keys left behind, such as
HKCR\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\iSkysoftVideoCo nverterFileOpreation\
(note the typo)
And even after rebooting, there was still stuff in the registry:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run \
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\iSkysoft\iSkysoft Helper
Compact\ISHelper.exe

So I would not recommend this program for anyone unless you absolutely
needed it to convert a long mp4 into a short wav file.

What is "Program Data" for anyway?
And is that DLL a DLL it put there?

I have to look this up but clearly it's a lousy program that I can't
recommend to anyone since it's so sneaky.

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 11:49:18 +0000 (UTC), Lionel Muller
wrote:

For alt.comp.os.windows-10 wrote:


I use a small BAT file that a) changes the rights from restricted to
not b) asks NOTEPAD to open HOSTS then c) upon closing of NOTEPAD,
puts the restrictions back on

Attrib -r C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\Hosts

"D:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe"
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\Hosts

Attrib +r C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\Hosts

I run it buy right clicking on the Bat on the desk top and clicking on
Run as Administrator.

Been doing this since there was a HOSTS file.

Thanks for writing this up where you remove restrictions and then edit the
file as the user and then add back the restrictions, which gets you around
the administrator problem.

You use a batch file which gets you around the path problem to the hosts
file (which admittedly, is in a lousy location).

As far as I knew there werre no restriction on the Hosts file as born.
I added the Read Only attribution to assist against bad guys doing bad
things.


I especially appreciate that you were one of the few who actually
understood the question enough to propose a viable solution.

I think I'll stick with the solution I came up with, which doesn't require
changing the file permissions and which works either from a shortcut or a
menu:
Start Programs hosts
or
Start Run hosts

See the details in the tutorial I wrote up.

Thanks for helping out!