What is hosts.sam??

[Gade Terbob]

Using Windows ME, file c:\windows\hosts.sam

While trying to figure out why my domain quit resolveing for only me, I stumbled across this file. Think it may have been the source of the problem, but like so many other windows problems, this one apparently fixed itself.

All the rest of the lines are remmed out for comments but this one:

127.0.0.1 localhost

I know that that IP is reserved for "this computer". Why does my computer consider itself a host? There are no server functions enabled, and in fact are prohibited by ZoneAlarm Pro.

What the heck is a ".sam" file, anyway? There are about 50 others, all in various Microsoft folders.

[admin]

hosts.sam is a sample of the way the file hosts should look. The hosts file is the TCP/IP method, in its most basic form, of resolving names to ip addresses.

[Rodzilla]

I love .sam files...delete one and you've just completely destroyed all the 'protection' your windows installation had....oh how easy it is to get into Win2k systems, which are supposedly more secure... :P

[Gade Terbob]

Does a line in the hosts.sam file eliminate the dns lookup function for that domain?

[admin]

It will work around it, but first you need to rename the file to hosts