This is looking too screwy to me. I am going to reinstall my OS and apps. I got lazy and did not make partial backup images of my installation progress this time. So, I have no backups to turn to for this. Yes, it is a lot of trouble, but I should be able to pinpoint where this is coming from. and fix it. I've has a lot of problems with LTSB installations lately. I won't be back on this thread before I redo and reexamine the complete installation. Thanks for your help with this.
I just ran HOSTS from CMD as admin, edited and saved without a hassle. Code: notepad c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS
But quite obviosly you and several others havent read the thread . He cant edit it because its being blocked .
... That may be the case, but... more importantly- he's not prepared to do the work to find out what process/software is actually blocking it..... ... my host file is locked by something doesn't cut it for me... ( I am using *** AV, *** Firewall and *** Browser extensions would be more useful - but unfortunately .. not forthcoming) consequently he (most likely) will be back here soon enough with the same issue.... SHUCKS.. I forgot I wasn't going to post anything here anymore... my bad...
Are you running Windows 10, If so I would figure out what going on because win 10 does not deal well with large hosts files. You have a lot have you tried notpad++ or any of the other solutions people posted
One of the posts above put me onto the problem. I can't find it right now. I think it's been deleted. But,someone from Europe (?) described a very similar problem. Many pirate sites showing up in the hosts file blocking access to them. Chasing that down, I find that Win10 Security has a feature, if you can call it that, called "Reputation-Based Protection". It appears to be responsible for the additions to " hosts ". The result is that it is causing access to those sited to be blocked. And, it looks like M$ is the one that's doing it. It also seems that they're watching what's happening with this. Some of the fixes put out for this have been disabled in somewhat odd ways. I think they're fighting back to keep this in place and working, as part of their plan to keep control of Win10. The extra files in the " etc " folder, look like some type of programing, not just some low brow screwing around.
Been able to delete all the added entries in hosts. We'll see how long they stay deleted. Also deleted all the extra files in " etc " folder imhosts will not stay deleted.
Microsoft would never add those stupid block entries in hosts file by themselves, I call BS on that. I‘ve never seen something like that happen „on its own“. Some of those entries are utterly nonsense, for example IP addresses matched to 127.0.0.1 (how would that work?!). So this is never ever from Microsoft itself. It‘s most likely a tool / script / virus / whatever process that‘s editing your hosts file and you should focus on that tbh.
Solo ......... you still didnt do what Drew said ...... Slow down You shouldnt be deleting anything in that etc folder untill you know if it should be there . You need to find out whats locking the hosts file ......... before you reinstall otrherwise you may get the same problems again . ..... in circles . Just deleting things isnt going to get you anywhere .......... except in the s**t
your having problems because your not delegating the proper access to the host file u must have full control of the file.
Seriously... pretty certain 90% of users don't even know what the host file is/where to find it/what its purpose is......... ... I must be an addict .. Keep coming back here why? why? why?
say what, guess you never heard of what the hosts file actually was originally made for. back in the day when the internet was invented there were only a few universities that had a connection, DNS was not invented yet they used the hosts file to connect to each other, when an admin found a new IP he would put it in the hosts file as time went on they soon realized that as more and more computers were connecting the hosts file was getting out of hand and difficult to find lists of IP's so DNS was invented. When XP came out people used the hosts file to block sites with the hosts file and used the IP of 127.0.0.1 which is local address of the computer, Windows 10 prefers a IP of 0.0.0.0 it redirects faster. I do agree with you that Microsoft would not use the hosts file to block sites
I remember hearing or reading a story back in the very early days of the internet. Some academic at a university, a professor or similar, created a list of all the sites on the WWW (World Wide Web). In those days, there were quite a few universities and research facilities connected to the internet, but very few of them had bothered to create a web site. Some entrepreneur with visions of riches purchased the list for an outlandish amount, I seem to remember the number $250k. And the story was, the list fit easily on a floppy disk, as the number of WWW sites at the time was in the low 3 figure range.
I think you got me wrong here. What I was refering to was for example this entry: Code: 127.0.0.1 54.237.131.90 This of course doesn't make any sense, there's no DNS involved whatsoever if you just access "54.237.131.90". That's why I was saying these entries are never ever from Microsoft itself
Never heard that one and that price is outlandish for the time , Most people did it for free one young student spent a lot of his time looking for new networked computers and posted the file on a free FTP server and had I can't remember if was daily or weekly updated I wish I could remember his name or even a correct way to do a Google search to find the article that would lead to his story that I read close to 30 years ago about him. At the time he was famous and well liked and respected he started out doing it for himself and shared it open source style probably before the word opensource was coined. One of the other reasons DNS was invented was that researchers knew that it was very easy to game the system and they needed an authoritative way to make sure that if you wanted to connect to a certain university or research company you actually got what you wanted, back then most if not all malware was some kid playing a stupid prank or similar to goatse no harm was done but it made the author laugh (not out loud that was not invented yet either).
Ok sorry I only read the first few lines of his hosts file I did not notice that glaring mistake -- that, Would of helped if you said that to begin with
I had made the deletions of the additions to the " hosts " file, and the added files in the " etc " folder. Since then, all has worked well thru many shutdowns and restarts. I have not run all my installed programs since, so it is possible the cause may be there, even though, my suspicions are elsewhere. To be honest, I don't think so. Not many people can remember history, and what it tells us. Between that and not many even knowing the present, privacy is disappearing swiftly. Many of the post here are very strong reminders of that. As a fail-safe, I have created 2 clean installs of my OS plus mobo drivers and utilities, and have archived images of them. They are good without the problem in them. I can now check and isolate the problem if it's contained in my present OS and is activated again. I read all posts, but ignore most because of the quality of whats in them. Don't have the time to deal with them. Through the years, I've learned the hard way that most participants in forums are less knowledgeable than I am concerning what I'm asking about. I sometimes end up writing it off as a lost cause. Usually, I end up figuring it out myself, but I do get hints for where to go looking for what I need from the responses. Anyway, I seem to have the problem fixed and have a way to stomp on it, if it shows up again. Thanks all for your responses. I have been able to pick some wheat out of the chaff.