Any way to make HOSTS file updates take effect w/out reboot in XP?

[BatmanNate]

I've added some more blocked sites to the host file on my server, although I hate to reboot it just for these to take effect. Any way to reload the file or have the changes take effect without rebooting? I'm running XP Pro SP1.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

restart networking?

 

[BatmanNate]

For some reason it just applied. It wasn't restarting IE that did it, and I haven't restarted networking to my knowledge. Oh well, thanks anyways.

 

[Moss]

The system always reads the hosts file first and then queries DNS so you should not have to restart anything to get it to read a newly updated hosts file. If it was stored in the kernel then you would need to restart, or have it reread the file. But as you seen, it reads it from that location, so when you update it, the system will read through the newly updated file when it does any other DNS Queries.

 

[mobogasm]

nbtstat -R should do it

 

[SUOrangeman]

If you have your task manager up, you should see services.exe max out a CPU for a minute or two. Once that dies down, the updated hosts file should be in effect.

-SUO