How to reset the Hosts file back to the default – Microsoft Support – The Windows hosts File Location

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Windows 10 still retains the old computing standard of having a hosts file for rudimentary hostname mapping. In simpler terms, the hosts file provides a mechanism to map domain names (such as “replace.me”) to server IP addresses of your choice. Oct 18,  · The hosts file is ALWAYS here: C:\\Windows\\System32\\Drivers\\etc\\Hosts. Report abuse Report abuse. Type of abuse. Harassment is any behavior intended to disturb or upset a person or group of people. Threats include any threat of suicide, violence, or harm to another. Any content of an adult theme or inappropriate to a community web site. Feb 25,  · The hosts file is located in “C:\\Windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc” on both Windows 10 and You need administrative permissions to edit it, which means that you can’t just open it in a normal Notepad window. How to Edit the Windows hosts File. You can edit the hosts file with any text editor. There are a variety available, but both Windows 10 and 11 come .
 
 

How to Edit the hosts File on Windows 10 or 11

 

To launch tracert, click on the Start icon, then type command prompt into the search bar. Type command prompt into the search bar.

When the command prompt icon appears, give it a click. In the subsequent window, type tracert followed by the URL of the website in question, for example:. Next, press the Enter key on your keyboard. The command prompt will then display the IP address of website. In Windows XP and earlier, editing your hosts file was relatively straightforward. You could simply add an exception to your antivirus, open the hosts file in the Notepad application, and then make your changes.

However, Windows 10 added some security measures to prevent users from accidentally modifying this important file. This makes sense, as editing the hosts file could potentially make your favorite websites inaccessible.

In the worst-case scenario, it might even make the Internet unusable on your machine. In Windows 10, the hosts information is stored in a plain text file in the internal System32 folder.

The quickest way to gain this is to use a text application that has elevated privileges. To start, press the Windows key and type Notepad into the search field.

Search for the Notepad app. Next, right-click on Notepad and select Run as Administrator. Windows 10 will now ask whether you want to allow this application to make changes to your device. Select Yes.

Select Run as Administrator. This launches a privileged instance of the Notepad application. Note that you may be asked to enter an administrative password in order to re-authenticate yourself. Select File and then Open in the Notepad toolbar. Then, navigate to C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts. In Notepad, open the File name dropdown and choose All Files.

Open the File name dropdown and choose All Files. You can now add your custom IP address and hostname to the end of this file. In the subsequent window, type the following:. To flush the DNS cache, press the Enter key. Once this process is complete, Windows 10 should be using your new hosts file settings. Alternatively, restarting your computer should have the same effect. By default, you cannot edit the hosts file without administrator privileges. You might also be worried about hosts file hijack attacks.

In these scenarios, you might want to consider locking your hosts file. To lock your hosts file, navigate to C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts. Then, right-click on the file and select Properties. In the Properties window, mark the hosts file as Read-only. This will lock the file and prevent anyone from modifying it. If you want to remove this lock at any point, simply navigate back to the Properties window. You can then remove this Read-only restriction.

You can always remove individual entries from your hosts file. Simply open the file in Notepad and delete the line in question. However, sometimes you may need to revert your hosts file to its original state.

You may also be encountering strange redirects, which suggests that your hosts file has become corrupted. To reset your hosts file back to its original state, open your File Explorer. Then, press the Enter key on your keyboard.

At this point, we recommend renaming your original hosts file. This file will then serve as a backup, just in case you encounter any issues with your new hosts file. You may be required to take ownership of this file first, depending on how privileges are configured on your computer. The next step is creating a new default hosts file. Save this file. As always, you may need to reset your computer or flush your DNS cache in order for these changes to take effect. Worried about testing DNS-related changes?

Making changes to your DNS records can feel like a stressful endeavor. However, as we discussed in this article, you can safely test your local hosts file without putting your live records at risk.

In Windows 10, you can do this by finding your IP address, running Notepad as an administrator, then making your changes. The hosts file is generally stored in a system configuration path or location which requires special privileges like Administrator to access and change it. As stated previously hosts file has very basic syntax. Each line is an entry to match the IP address with the domain name.

In hosts file sign is used to create comments. Comments are useful to create some notes or explanations about the given DNS record.

We can also use comments in order to make an active record passive. In the following example, the poftut. If we want to make this record passive without deleting it we can put a before the poftut. Before starting the adding, removing or changing the contents of the hosts file backing up is good behavior.

Especially if there are a lot of records it will be very useful. As hosts file is a simple text file we can take a backup just copy and paste it into the same directory with a different name or different directory will work.

Below we copied the hosts file and added the. We can see that the type of hosts. Modifying the hosts file requires Administrative privileges. First From the Start Menu type notepad and right-click to the listed notepad app. The notepad will be opened and shown like below. We will add the following records where there are some comments.

 

Checking Your Windows Hosts File – Blizzard Support – 2 ways to open hosts file in Windows 10:

 
Where is the Hosts File Located? ; Windows 10 – \”C:\\Windows\\System32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts\” ; Linux – \”/etc/hosts\” ; Mac OS X – \”/private/etc/hosts\”. On the File menu, select Save as, type \”hosts\” in the File. Select Start > Run, type %WinDir%\\System32\\Drivers\\Etc, and then select OK. Select the Hosts file.