I used Microsoft's Mr Fixit to reset my hosts file to default and now there is no Hosts file in C:/windows/drivers/etc/ My browsers work. What should I do?1 person needs an answerI do too

I used Microsoft's Mr Fixit to reset my hosts file to default and now there is no Hosts file in C:/windows/drivers/etc/ My browsers work. What should I do?First, you should be looking in C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etcSecond, it really doesn't matter if you have a hosts file or not.Third, do you have either a hosts.bak or a hosts.sam file? If so, the default hosts file is just a copy of hosts.sam renamed to not have the file extension. The hosts.bak file is a previous version of your hosts file.Fourth, if you want a hosts file that helps block known bad websites, go to http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htmFifth, if you want to have the Windows XP default hosts file, open a Notepad window and copy/paste the material between the lines of asterisks below. When you save it in C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc you probably will have to rename it after it has been saved to get rid of the txt file extension.************************************************************# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.## This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.## This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one# space.## Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.## For example:## 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host127.0.0.1 localhost*********************************************************************

Great LemP . You're talking about just the stuff I want to know. I was indeed looking in C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc. I mistakenly left out system 32 when I was typing.The whole hosts file business seems so complicated. First I deleted 86 hosts.*.backup files because I thought it would be safe to do so. I kept the latest backup because it seemed prudent to do so, as well as the 407kb hosts file. Then I went to MS Support Mr Fixit and downloaded the MSI file to reset the hosts default. After I ran the program and restarted my computer there was no hosts file at all anymore. What was left was the hosts file renamed hosts.old, the hosts.*.backup, and a file called imhosts.sam (created in 2003). There is no hosts.sam (what does sam mean?) and there is no hosts.BAK. The reason I am doing this is because I thought the hosts file might be too big and slowing down my Firefox browser.Before I did any of this I visited the mvps website you mentioned (What does mvps mean?) Anyway after I read the complete site it seem apparent that It would not work well on Win XP. The mvps website said that the Hosts file would be over 135kb and so should be set to manual or disabled. That made no sense, so I went to Mr Fixit. So here I am. I have no idea what I should do do browse safely but not slow down too much.

Great LemP . You're talking about just the stuff I want to know. I was indeed looking in C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc. I mistakenly left out system 32 when I was typing.The whole hosts file business seems so complicated. First I deleted 86 hosts.*.backup files because I thought it would be safe to do so. I kept the latest backup because it seemed prudent to do so, as well as the 407kb hosts file. Then I went to MS Support Mr Fixit and downloaded the MSI file to reset the hosts default. After I ran the program and restarted my computer there was no hosts file at all anymore. What was left was the hosts file renamed hosts.old, the hosts.*.backup, and a file called imhosts.sam (created in 2003). There is no hosts.sam (what does sam mean?) and there is no hosts.BAK. The reason I am doing this is because I thought the hosts file might be too big and slowing down my Firefox browser.Before I did any of this I visited the mvps website you mentioned (What does mvps mean?) Anyway after I read the complete site it seem apparent that It would not work well on Win XP. The mvps website said that the Hosts file would be over 135kb and so should be set to manual or disabled. That made no sense, so I went to Mr Fixit. So here I am. I have no idea what I should do do browse safely but not slow down too much. The two "sam" files are SAMples of host files. The second one actually is Lmhosts, which is used for name resolution on local networks. Home users rarely, if ever, need to use an LMHOSTS file.There is a brief description of what the hosts file does in the comments at the top of the file. Without getting into detail, Windows uses the hosts file -- if it exists -- to translate a human-friendly name for an Internet resource (like a web site) into the numerical IP address that is actually used to route traffic over the Internet.If there is no hosts file, this translation process is done by a remote computer called a DNS server (Domain Name System). For home users who connect to the Internet using an Internet Service Provider (ISP), the DNS server is provided as a service by the ISP.You slightly misread the mvps web site (Microsoft has a program it calls Most Valuable Professionals, which is comprised of individuals recognized by Microsoft for contributions to the on-line community. MVPS.org comprises current and former Microsoft MVPs ). What the web site says is that if you have a large hosts file -- over 135 kb -- then your computer might slow down. Because the hosts file supplied by mvps currently is about 608 kb, the web site suggests that you disable a Windows service (an application that Windows runs in the background) that uses the hosts file. This service is normally not needed for home users surfing the Internet.For further help, see the links at the bottom of the web page, particularly theHosts File FAQ .

Thank you LemP. This discussion is helpful. The Hosts File FAQ is not very helpful.If hosts files over 135kb are bad, why are the MVP's recommending one that is 608kb?The hosts file removed by Mr Fixit was 407kb. Wouldn't that one be better than the larger MVP hosts file?How can I reverse the changes made by Microsoft Support's Mr Fixit? I already tried system restore, but it did not work. Is there anyway I can use the hosts.old file?Also shouldn't you or someone tell Microsoft that there hosts file default resetting program is malfunctioning and deleting the hosts file?Finally, your best judgement. Would I be best to use the huge MVP hosts file? What functionality will I lose by disabling services.msc as recommended?Additional questions. What good is the hosts.*.backup? (* indicates an alphanumeric string.) What was the purpose of the 86 hosts.*.backup files that I deleted? Is a BAK file similar to a backup file? What is the difference? Can I use the backup file to recreate the hosts file?

Thank you LemP. This discussion is helpful. The Hosts File FAQ is not very helpful.If hosts files over 135kb are bad, why are the MVP's recommending one that is 608kb?The hosts file removed by Mr Fixit was 407kb. Wouldn't that one be better than the larger MVP hosts file?How can I reverse the changes made by Microsoft Support's Mr Fixit? I already tried system restore, but it did not work. Is there anyway I can use the hosts.old file?Also shouldn't you or someone tell Microsoft that there hosts file default resetting program is malfunctioning and deleting the hosts file?Finally, your best judgement. Would I be best to use the huge MVP hosts file? What functionality will I lose by disabling services.msc as recommended?Additional questions. What good is the hosts.*.backup? (* indicates an alphanumeric string.) What was the purpose of the 86 hosts.*.backup files that I deleted? Is a BAK file similar to a backup file? What is the difference? Can I use the backup file to recreate the hosts file?I don't use a hosts file at all, so I can't answer from personal experience. However, it's not the size of the hosts file that matters, it's what is in it. The point of the entries in any "anti-malware" hosts file (there might be other reasons to use a hosts file, but anti-malware is the most common for home users) is to deal with hidden HTML code in a web page that directs your web browser to an unwanted site. Suppose someone has coded a web page so that that when you access it, it directs your browser to www.stealmyidentity.com. If someone -- like the people who compiled the MVP hosts file -- knows of the existence of that site and puts an entry into the hosts file like this 127.0.0.1 www.stealmyidentity.comthen when the HTML code gets executed, your browser goes to IP address 127.0.0.1 instead of the actual IP address of the bad site. And 127.0.0.1 happens to be the "loopback" IP address of your own computer (which is why the logo at the top of the MVP Hosts web page says "There's no place like 127.0.0.1").Thus, you can't compare your old 407 kb hosts file with the MVP 608 kb hosts file and say the former was "better." No, it's probably not better, because it lists fewer "bad" sites. I don't know the details of why a hosts file larger than 135 kb might slow things down, but given that 407 kb is so much larger than 135 kb, I'd guess that from a performance point of view, 407 kb isn't a lot better than 608 kb either. And in any case, the MVP web page gives you a procedure for dealing with this potential slow down. And you are not disabling services.msc -- you are using services.msc to disable the DNS Client service. Further note that setting a service to "manual" isn't the same as "disabled." Setting a service to "manual" just doesn't start the service until something needs it. So I suggest that you use the MVP hosts file and set the DNS Client service to "manual" as suggested. If this causes a problem, you can simply go back to the default hosts file and set the DNS Client service to "automatic," which is the default.You seem to be correct that the Microsoft FixIt routine (in the future, be sure to identify the Knowledge Base article that includes the FixIt you're talking about because Microsoft has a lot of different "FixIt" routines) doesn't do quite what it says it's going to do. What the FixIt routine appears to do is to rename the existing hosts file to hosts.old. This brings the system back to what I recall is the system's default state -- no hosts file at all. If you then want the "default" hosts file, you copy the sample hosts file (hosts.sam) to a new file just named hosts (with no file extension).A *.backup or *.bak file in this case is just the previous hosts file. It seems as if you were using some service that regularly gave you a new hosts file. Rather than simply replacing your existing hosts file with the new one, this service renamed your current file and then created the new one. There is no good reason for keeping 86 old versions of anything. To "recreate" the hosts file from a hosts.old, hosts.bak, host.backup or hosts.backup75 file, simply rename it to remove the file extension. You can look at any of these files using Notepad, but because the file extension isn't txt, when you double click a *.bak file or use "open with", you'll get the dialog asking you to select the program to open the file from a list. Just pick Notepad and you're good to go.