Windows XP Pro Hosts File

Discussion in 'SpywareBlaster & Other Forum' started by Jusletgo, May 20, 2003.

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  1. Jusletgo

    Jusletgo Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 20, 2003
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    Location:
    San Diego
    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.
     
  2. javacool

    javacool BrightFort Moderator

    Joined:
    Feb 10, 2002
    Posts:
    4,100
    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
     
  3. nameless

    nameless Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2003
    Posts:
    1,233
    This isn't true, but the presence of one or the other file may depend on your own particular network setup.
     
  4. Jusletgo

    Jusletgo Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 20, 2003
    Posts:
    2
    Location:
    San Diego
    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
     
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