Hosts File Changes

What are Hosts Files?

Often when previewing a website before it goes live you may be required to trick your computer into thinking that a website is on a different server to where the live site is.  To do this you will need to edit the host file.

Modifying Hosts Files

For Windows 10 and 8

1. Press the Windows key.
2. Type Notepad in the search field.
3. In the search results, right-click Notepad and select Run as administrator.
4. From Notepad, open the following file: c:WindowsSystem32Driversetchosts
5. Make the necessary changes to the file.
6. Click File > Save, to save your changes.

See below for an example of a hosts file.

You can add an entry by providing the the following

[your hosting account's IP address] [your domain name]

For example: 
12.0.0.1 sampledomain.com

[top_tip]Once you are done testing the website. Remove it again on the hosts file or include a hash symbol (#)  before the IP address to comment the line out.[/top_tip]

Never change the below lines:

127.0.0.1      localhost
::1            localhost