Within your hosts file, you should see something similar to the following: # Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp. Now that you have the correct file open, it’s time to modify your hosts file. This is the information that you will need for your hosts file mod. If you have a dedicated IP, it will say “Dedicated IP” instead. Scroll down to where you see “Shared IP address”.Look for Server Information and click on that link.
Windows 10 c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc.Windows XP Home/Vista/Windows 7 c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc.
Windows NT/2000/XP Pro c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc.If you do not see it there, other possibilities are as follows: While not all Windows versions store it in the same place, it is typically located within c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc and the filename is: hosts. Open Your hosts FileĪfter you have Notepad up and running as administrator, you can then locate your hosts file and open it. Then, right-click on it and click on “Run as administrator”. If it is not already there, you can type “notepad” into the search box to show it. Note: If you are running Windows XP or lower, you won’t need to run it as administrator as this functionality only exists in Vista and above. This is because the hosts file is a system file and cannot be modified without elevated privileges. To modify your hosts file, you will need to first run Notepad (or any other text editor available to you on the same computer) as administrator. IMPORTANT: While reviewing this article, if you are unsure exactly what you need to do, we recommend watching the video above. Other devices, that do not have the hosts file modified, will resolve to the IP address: 172.16.0.0, found in the DNS zone–present in the name servers that the domain is pointed to.
In the image, the hosts file on “ Your Computer” has been modified with the following code: 86.75.30.9 Ĩ6.75.30.9 Since the hosts file was only modified on “ Your Computer“, only that device will resolve the domain: to the IP address: 86.75.30.9. The image (to the right) depicts the process of resolving a domain to an IP address using various devices. This is necessary when you are working with domain-name-dependent software (ie: Content Management System (CMS), such as Joomla! or WordPress). This is especially useful when developing your site on our server when your nameservers are not pointed to us yet. What is a hosts File Modification?Ī hosts file modification is a simple tweak that is used to “trick” your computer into resolving to a specific IP.
Don’t have time to read our full article? Watch our walk-through video.