With their latest Vista (non)operating system, Microsoft has decided in their infinite wisdom that you do not need permission to edit the HOSTS file (and many other system files), telling you instead after an attempted edit that:

“Access to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts was denied.”

There are many reasons you might want to edit the HOSTS file:

• Block browser access to a website;
• Block an application from contacting an update or heartbeat website;
• Block advertisements from specific content providers;
• Mimic a hostname without requiring chnages to DNS;

In my case, this morning, I was trying to run a development version of WordPress on my local computer, but WordPress won’t allow itself to be accessed by visiting http://localhost or http://127.0.0.1.

One Solution of Many

Right-click Notepad, and select the “Run as administrator” option. Now simply open the HOSTS file with Notepad (the file’s still in the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\ folder). This time when you save your changes, there will not be an access-denied message.

Thanks to Michael for pointing out that Linux does the same thing: Just preface the command with “sudo”, as in “sudo vi /etc/hosts“

The Problem

When you run Network Map on a Microsoft Windows Vista-based computer, computers that are running Windows XP do not appear on the network diagram.

The Solution

Microsoft says that that’s not Vista’s fault, rather it is a problem with your XP computer for not supporting Link-Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD). Therefore, your outdated Windows XP requires a patch.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed…
* Microsoft Windows XP Professional
* Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

The Rant

Does anyone else see a problem with this? Why is this considered a “confirmed problem” with XP? Shouldn’t this be a “confirmed problem” with Vista? Did it ever occur to any of the nimrods at Microsoft to include some basic backwards-compatibility in Vista?

Oh, I get it now! It’s my fault for wanting to see the other computers in my network the same way I’ve been able to for the past six years. What was I thinking?!

Thankfully, Microsoft is not in the automotive industry, otherwise we’d see more notices like this:.

Thank you for purchasing Microsoft Antenna Ball™ v2.0. Unfortunately, it has been confirmed that the aerial to which you are attempting to attach said Antenna Ball is not compatible with the Microsoft Heliosphere Electromagnetic Locking Protocol (HELP).

Resolution: To resolve this problem, remove the existing aerial and install Microsoft Aerial™ v3.5 before attempting to install Microsoft Antenna Ball.

Prerequisites: To install Aerial v3.5, you must have Windows Car Radio Aerial Protocol™ (SP2) installed in the vehicle, available from the Microsoft Download Center.

You may download Microsoft CRAP free of charge, but Microsoft HELP is only available after purchase of something really expensive. We’ll let you know what it is and how much it will cost you when we finish uploading your Microsoft Money files for analysis. You may not obtain or attempt to obtain Microsoft HELP through any means not intentionally made available by Microsoft.

Release Notes: There are reports of the titanium shell of Antenna Ball 2.0 impacting the windshield when traveling over 20 MPH, causing crack lines and divots in inferiorly manufactured windshields. Microsoft recommends Home users avoid speeds in excess of 15 MPH. Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate users may download the Microsoft Special High-Impact Titanium™ patch. Microsoft SHÍT is free.

Good luck getting HELP.

Update

Looks like Microsoft is entering the automotive industry with its adaptive heads-up user interface for automobiles. Gives you a brand-new perspective on the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

I arrived home from work a week or so ago and discovered the oh-so-friendly and wondrous Blue Screen of Death on my Windows XP x64 Dell Precision 470, which bore the foreboding phrase: STOP 0x000000ED UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

Photo © Sean Galbraith

A reboot eventually returned the same error, but not before the (non)operating system at least pretended to start up and display the Windows OS logo. That made me somewhat hopeful since it was a sign that the hard drive wasn’t completely hosed. It was at least partially functioning, unlike the marquee at Toronto’s The Bay department store.

Dell has an extensive diagnostic utility included on a separate partition on the hard drive. If you are lucky enough to be able to access the partition, you can get a good sense as to what the problem is. I was lucky. The suite of tests (that ran through the night and well into the next day) only came up with two bad sector errors on my main C partition. One full day gone.

I determined that I needed to run chkdsk /r at a shell prompt to hopefully fix the problem. How lovely that the Windows operating system doesn’t natively self-diagnose problems when it boots up like every other major operating system does. A ding against Dell or Microsoft (whichever you choose), the OEM version of WinXP does not include the repair utility from the “advanced” startup menu. Worse, the PC also didn’t come with the OS install disks (Dell’s fault this time), so I lost another potential gaming night because I had to go to work to burn a bootable ISO from the MSDN.

Popped the disk in, reconfigured my BIOS to boot from the CD drive, rebooted, got my shell prompt, ran chkdsk /r, rebooted again, and everything worked just fine.

Oh, by the way, I bought a new Mac Mini the other day. A noob, I screwed up something, and the Mac rebooted and fixed itself. Nice!