Windows7 will not let me edit the hosts file and save it

Question

Windows7 will not let me edit the hosts file and save it. What must I do in order to save the edited host file?

Answer 1

It's a built-in safety feature.  There is an easy workaround.  ClickStart ->All Programs -> Accessories.  Right-clickNotepad, and then click Run as administrator.  If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or clickAllow or Yes.

Open the Hosts file (from the notepad you just opened) , make your changes, and then click File ->Save. 

Barbara

Answer 2

You need to either take ownership of the file (Right click the hosts file, Security tab, and give yourself full rights), or open Notepad as Administrator and open, edit and save your hosts file from there. It's designed that way so some rogue malware can't come in and change that.

Answer 3

I had to disable Mcafee On Access Protection before I was allowed to save the hosts file without it being a hosts.txt

Answer 4

I reinstalled Windows 7 as of July 2011 with sp1 and  installed also all the updates.

I tried everything to update hosts:

Run notepad as an admin

Run cmd.exe as an admin and run notepad.exe hosts from the cmd commande

try to rename or remove hosts from cmd command to change it

Tried to change the security rights in every way; security rights of the file itself, of the directories also to no avail

I had no problem before this new installation, last time I updated it was nearly a month ago, but I'm unable to update hosts with the new one. My new installation is from the same disk than the previous one. The only differences are the updates maybe.

back to Notepad the only thing I'm allowed to do is to save it as hosts.txt then impossible to copy or rename or else

Answer 5

Finally I prepared a txt file, booted in Safe mode and was able to rename my txt file to hosts