Windows 10 cant edit hosts file free –

You could simply add an exception to your antivirus, open the hosts file in the Notepad application, and then make your changes. However, Windows 10 added some security measures to prevent users from accidentally modifying this important file.

This makes sense, as editing the hosts file could potentially make your favorite websites inaccessible. In the worst-case scenario, it might even make the Internet unusable on your machine. In Windows 10, the hosts information is stored in a plain text file in the internal System32 folder. The quickest way to gain this is to use a text application that has elevated privileges.

To start, press the Windows key and type Notepad into the search field. Search for the Notepad app. Next, right-click on Notepad and select Run as Administrator. Windows 10 will now ask whether you want to allow this application to make changes to your device.

Select Yes. Select Run as Administrator. This launches a privileged instance of the Notepad application. Note that you may be asked to enter an administrative password in order to re-authenticate yourself. Need a hosting solution that gives you a competitive edge? Check out our plans. Select File and then Open in the Notepad toolbar. Then, navigate to C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts. In Notepad, open the File name dropdown and choose All Files.

Open the File name dropdown and choose All Files. You can now add your custom IP address and hostname to the end of this file. In the subsequent window, type the following:. To flush the DNS cache, press the Enter key. Once this process is complete, Windows 10 should be using your new hosts file settings.

Alternatively, restarting your computer should have the same effect. By default, you cannot edit the hosts file without administrator privileges. You might also be worried about hosts file hijack attacks. In these scenarios, you might want to consider locking your hosts file. To lock your hosts file, navigate to C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts. Then, right-click on the file and select Properties. In the Properties window, mark the hosts file as Read-only.

This will lock the file and prevent anyone from modifying it. If you want to remove this lock at any point, simply navigate back to the Properties window. You can then remove this Read-only restriction. You can always remove individual entries from your hosts file. Simply open the file in Notepad and delete the line in question. However, sometimes you may need to revert your hosts file to its original state. You may also be encountering strange redirects, which suggests that your hosts file has become corrupted.

Also, make sure there is no symbol at the beginning of the line where you add your mapping as commenting means to ignore the line. Additionally, the hosts file does not have an extension and must not have one. Thus, it cannot be opened normally by double-clicking it.

You need to open it with Notepad or other text editor. This is a common error users receive when they try to edit the hosts file without admin rights and cannot save the hosts file after editing. What you need to do is to get permission to edit the hosts file in Windows This can be done by running Notepad as administrator first, then navigate to and open the hosts file from within Notepad.

If you have no idea what you are about to do, please do not add any mapping in the hosts file as it may brick some software that need access to the host name. It will also block you from accessing to the mapped host name or website address.

If you simply want to block a website or host name so that no program or software can access to it, you can use the address I had this problem and eventually discovered that the hosts file was being locked by my firewall Tinywall. Temporarily closing the firewall worked. To find out what program is locking the file, I recommend a small utility called Unlocker by Cedrick Collomb.

The download is no longer available on the author’s website, but I was able to obtain it from Softpedia. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Start collaborating and sharing organizational knowledge. Create a free Team Why Teams?

Learn more. Windows 10, can’t edit hosts file Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 10 months ago. Modified 1 year, 6 months ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question. Tobb Tobb 1 1 gold badge 5 5 silver badges 9 9 bronze badges. These limitations are put in place to keep people from “accidentally” infesting a system with malicious code. I don’t see the point of having the same security mechanisms for my 63 year old father who believes everything he sees on the internet, and me who have grown up with computers to such an extent that I’m suprised one is not attached to me.

I don’t want to spend time bypassing security measures that in practice offers me no security. Then it’s pretty annoying that I have to spend even more time disabling these measures, and even if I appearantly have, they are still there. Add a comment. Sorted by: Reset to default. Highest score default Date modified newest first Date created oldest first. Improve this answer.

Olivia Olivia 3 3 silver badges 2 2 bronze badges. Appearantly, administrator users does not gain the privileges of the administrators user group. When I gave the Users group full control of the file I was able to easily save it.

Makes sense to me, but hey, at least it’s working. None of these work for me. I cannot change Secutiry Settings and permissions either. Access is denied. Thumbs up! This file isn’t showing read-only — PlanetUnknown. PlanetUnknown It was when I wrote this answer, on a machine with a fresh install of Windows It might not be anymore after some of the recent updates.

I’ve quite literally tried all the solutions on the net and it was this! On my windows8, hosts file isn’t read-only. This applies to any firewall or antivirus you may have installed that has an option to lock editing of the hosts file e. David d C e Freitas 4, 3 3 gold badges 25 25 silver badges 33 33 bronze badges. Aristos Aristos 7 7 silver badges 17 17 bronze badges. This happend to me, and i was properly notified when i tried to erase the file :- , otherwise you only see “file in use”.

Seems then that protecting the file is made by just openinig for editing in lock mode, so no one could write or erase it untill you tinywall release it. Since my zonealarm antivirus did not have a visible option to “lock hosts file” I thought it just didn’t.

Windows 10 cant edit hosts file free. How To Edit the Hosts File in Windows 10

Join , subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The hosts file is the first place Windows checks when connecting to a website. You can edit it manually to block access to specific websites. Find out what and where it is, and how to edit it.

When you type in a regular web address to access a website, like google. It needs the correct IP address associated with the web address in order to make a connection. When a web address and an IP are inserted into the hosts file, it will provide that information to your computer any time you try to connect to that web address. You can edit the hosts file with any text editor.

There are a variety available, but both Windows 10 and 11 come with Notepad. Avoid using a word processor — the differences between Notepad and a word processor like Wordpad can sometimes cause problems. On the right-hand side, click the small downward-facing arrow to reveal more options.

Then, click the hosts file and hit open. Once the hosts file is open, you can start adding lines to block websites. The lines that go into the hosts file can be broken up into three basic components, each separated by at least one space. If there is, it means Notepad does not have administrative access, and that you need to close Notepad and run it as administrator. There are two addresses, There are significant differences between Rarely, a program running on your PC might have problems if you use That means the browser ignores the hosts file entirely and uses a secured DNS server specified by the browser instead, so any addresses you attempt to block using the hosts file will be accessible.

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Windows 10 cant edit hosts file free. How to Modify Your hosts File Using Windows

 
Feb 25,  · You’ll need to run Notepad as administrator to edit the hosts file. To do this on Windows 10, click the start button, type “notepad” into the search bar, and then on the right, click “Run as administrator.” Running Notepad on Windows 11 is the same process as Windows 10, except “Run as administrator” is not displayed immediately. rezatavakoli. · 4 yr. ago. I know you solved this but have this as a description and another way to solve: It’s because notepad (or anything else) does not have permission to write there, instead of double clicking, open notepad in administrator mode and click file->open and open hosts file, in this case you can save it. 0. Jan 27,  · Here’s how you can edit your hosts file without getting the “You don’t have permission to save in this location. Contact the administrator to obtain permission” error. Hit the start menu or press.