Windows XP Pro Hosts File

I have a totally tricked out, squeeky clean puter, running Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 1. Have been running Spybot and Ad-aware, as well as Norton System Works 2003 One Button Checkup religiously.

Just installed SpywareBlaster 2.5.3 for the first time. It seems to work perfectly except for one feature:

Tools => Hosts Safe => Create New Backup

Upon executing this feature, I get a popup msg reading:
"Run-time error 9: Subscript out of range"

Upon clicking OK, the SpywareBlaster program crashes.

Unlike earlier Windows versions the hosts file for Windows XP Pro is located at:

Windows => system32 => drivers => etc => lmhosts

This file is no longer named "hosts" but "lmhosts"

When I checked the etc folder I found a newly created file named "HOSTS" with nothing in it.

Is this a SpywareBlaster bug, or am I missing something.

Thanks.

Jusletgo

PS: I have always protected this "lmhosts" file with a "Copy of" in the same directory.

 

I believe you have hit the nail on the head, so to speak.

I can't offer any sort of workaround for now, but I'll have this fixed in the next version of SpywareBlaster.

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

This isn't true, but the presence of one or the other file may depend on your own particular network setup.

 

To Nameless --

I appreciate your heads-up on this. It was not my intention to mislead anyone on the presence or absence of a "hosts" file.

Did some research at the Windows XP Help and Support Center. I have excerpted a couple of quotes from there that may clarify things.

In the TCP/IP Overview section, I found this:

"Name resolution for network and dial-up connections.

"In addition to requiring an IP address, network and dial-up connections on a TCP/IP network may require a mechanism to map computer names to IP addresses. Four name resolution options are available: DNS, WINS, broadcast name resolution, and the Hosts and Lmhosts files.

"In small networks where IP addresses do not change, network and dial-up connections can use a Hosts or Lmhosts file for name resolution. By using these files on the local drive, you do not need to transmit name resolution requests to a WINS or DNS server and wait for the response.

Then later I found this in the "To configure TCP/IP to use a WINS Server":

"To enable the use of the Lmhosts file to resolve remote NetBIOS names, select the Enable LMHOSTS lookup check box. This option is enabled by default. "

While I make no claim to understand much of this, save how to redirect a pointer in the hosts/lmhosts file to a new IP addy, I think now that an XP OS may have either a "hosts" or "lmhosts" file, depending upon the network connection configurations you have.

I have a DSL connection through SBC Pacific Bell. The "lmhosts" file must have been automatically created as a result of that installation.

Hope this helps.


To Javacool --

Thanks for your response. Hope this little dialogue has helped to sort out the prob.

Many thanks.

Jusletgo