How to resolve all .dev domains to localhost on Windows

Do you have a .dev zone in DNS already? You can create a wildcard entry where *.dev goes to the loopback.

Alternative: get your devs to just append .localtest.me, which is a public DNS zone that already exists (with a * A record) for this purpose.

I have resolved this situation using Acrylic DNS Proxy. It's a free, open-source software for Windows that allows you to wildcard a folder as local top domain registry.

1. Download Acrylic DNS Proxy here: http://mayakron.altervista.org/wikibase/show.php?id=AcrylicHome
2. Configure your Network settings to point to your local IP address as explained here: http://mayakron.altervista.org/wikibase/show.php?id=AcrylicWindows10Configuration
3. Open your Acrylic config file here: Start > Programs > Acrylic DNS Proxy > Edit Custom Hosts File (AcrylicHosts.txt)
4. Add your wildcarded top level domain like this: 127.0.0.1 *.dev
5. Restart Acrylic like this: Start > Programs > Acrylic DNS Proxy > Restart Acrylic Service
6. Add the wildcard to your Apache config file. It may look similar to this:

It may look similar to this:

LoadModule vhost_alias_module modules/mod_vhost_alias.so  

NameVirtualHost *.dev:80  

<Directory "/www/sites">  
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI  
    AllowOverride All  
    Order allow,deny  
    Allow from all  
 </Directory>  

 <VirtualHost *.dev:80>  
     VirtualDocumentRoot c:/www/sites/%-1/%-2+/  
 </VirtualHost>  

That should do the trick.

I can recommend http://localhost.tv - all subdomains resolve to 127.0.0.1