Where is my hosts file

I want to add an IP address to a DNS name so I don't have to rely on DNS to do the resolution for me but I can not seem to locate the hosts file when I do a search on my machine. Any ideas?

Sometimes doing a search will not find the hosts file. Typically the hosts file is located on a windows machine at the following location:

%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\

So you can click on Start - Run and type:

See if the file is there in explorer run: explorer %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\

To edit the file run: notepad %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts to edit the file

If you aren't seeing the file in that location then the administrator may have moved the location of the hosts file. No worries, you can find the new location by looking in the registry at: \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DataBasePath