How to edit the hosts in Windows 7?

Solution 1:

Although you are the system administrator, Windows 7 by default runs your program with reduced permissions.

To be able to update the protected hosts file, you should start notepad with the "Run as administrator" option, even if you are the administrator.

You can turn off this behavior by disabling UAC, but the cure may be worse than the problem.

Solution 2:

Here's the simplest way to do it:

Press the start button, paste notepad C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts, then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter. In fact, you can run any application/command as an admin this way.

Solution 3:

• Go to the shortcut for Notepad in your Start menu.
• Right click the Notepad icon. Select Run as administrator
• When Notepad is loaded open the file C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
• Edit, and save the file
• Your Hosts file is edited

You have to run it as Administrator because Win7 will automatically run programs with reduced permissions

*There are of course 101 more ways to do this, this is just one of them.