
Sample entries, using Unicode control pictures to indicate control characters. then finally a carriage return followed by a line feed, (escape codes \r\n, ASCII CRLF, hex 0x0d 0x0a). The format for each line is IP address, then a horizontal tab (escape code \t, ASCII HT, hex 0x09) or a single space (hex 0x20), then the host name, ie. Did you take care of all variants ( and - safest to just add both)?.Did you follow the correct syntax? Did you accidentally prefix lines with a hash ( #) which indicates comments?.Is the extension correct? It should have no extension ( hosts not hosts.txt) - be careful if you have configured windows to hide known extensions, check the properties to be sure: The correct hosts file's type will show up as just "File".Is your hosts file named correctly? It should be hosts and not host, etc.See NSLOOKUP and NBLOOKUP give one IP address PING finds another 2. NB: nslookup does not look at the hosts file. You can check the current data in the DNS cache with: ipconfig /displaydns | more If yes, your hosts file is fine and the problem is elsewhere.Īlso, you can reset the NetBios cache with (open the console as an admin or it will fail): nbtstat -R To check if it works, use (assuming you have an ipv4 entry in your hosts for or an ipv6 entry in your hosts for ): ping -4 -n 1Īnd see if it uses the correct IP. Open a command line (Windows+R, cmd, Enter) and type: ipconfig /flushdns Did you check that it works correctly?Ĭhanges to hosts should take effect immediately, but Windows caches name resolution data so for some time the old records may be used.

Based on my own experience and what I encountered while Googling, here are some things to try: 1.
