Hi

I've been having a security certificate problem on one of my machines and as part of my investigation I tried to open the MS page explaining how to reset the hosts file yet on both my machines and in different browsers using both 3BB and OpenDNS servers I get a blank page.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972034

Does anyone have the same problem?

--damole

I'm also on 3BB and get a blank page for the MS site. Strangely, I've been getting blank pages often tonight even on some Thaivisa topics so not sure if it is an issue with 3BB.

Interesting, I just enabled my VPN to test and the MS link comes up fine.

No problems here... True, BKK.

To reset the hosts file back to the default, follow these steps:

1. 
   1. Click Start, click Run, type %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc, and then click OK.
   Note If you are using 64 bit version of Windows, type %systemroot%
   \SysWOW64\drivers\etc.
   2. Rename the hosts file to hosts.bak.
   3. Create the new default hosts file. To do this, follow these steps:
   

• 
  a. Right-click an open space in the %WinDir%\system32\drivers\etc folder, point to
  New, click Text Document, type hosts, and then press ENTER.
  b. Click Yes to confirm that the file name extension will not be txt.
  c. Open the new created hosts file in a text editor, for example, in the Notepad.
  d. Copy the following text to the file:
  For Windows XP or Windows Server 2003
  

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

127.0.0.1       localhost

For Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008

# Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

127.0.0.1       localhost
::1             localhost

For Windows 7

# Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handle within DNS itself.
#       127.0.0.1       localhost
#       ::1             localhost

e. Save and close the file.

Source: KB972034

Thanks for the replies.

Well I got up this morning and many pages were coming up blank so I flushed my dns cache, turned the modem off for 5 minutes, rebooted the PC and voila everything seems to be fine, this using 3BB's own dns servers. Now I just need to sort out my security certificate problem.

cheers

damole