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I am running on a vista. Localhost and 127.0.0.1 do not work anymore but my computer name still works. Localhost and 127.0.0.1 only show a blank page however using my computer name can access xampp homepage as well as my server files. I am assuming there is something wrong with my hosts file but when i checked it looks fine:

127.0.0.1 localhost

is the only thing in there that is not commented out, which seems right according to what I've seen on the web so far.

I had a trojan recently that I got rid of so I believe that definitely has something to do with it. It was msa.exe among potentially others but I think I got rid of it with Malwarebytes. This is the only issue that is left. Thanks!

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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

Check your hosts file:

C:\windows\drivers\etc\hosts

I once changed it and there were some localhost entries there that I commented out.

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On Vista it's C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts, and you may have to open notepad/wordpad/other-editor as admin to be able to edit the file (right click and 'Run as Amdministrator'). – Alister Bulman Jan 3 '11 at 10:43
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up vote 1 down vote

Recall that the 'computer name' in Windows is the NetBIOS name. The hostname of localhost and the IP address of 127.0.0.1 are only related to the NetBIOS name when NetBIOS resolution is up and running.

Perhaps your DNS Client service is not working as expected? Run services.msc to find out more.

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Thanks for the fast reply! I checked the DNS Client service and it looks like it is working as expected though I'm not sure what I should be looking for. It says the service has started. Also, I tried accessing localhost and 127.0.0.1 in https instead of http and it works once I set an exception for them in firefox. Using https and the computer name are fine for what I'm doing right now but I really would like to figure out why they don't work in http now, for future reference and better understanding. – Steven Feb 11 '10 at 17:19
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protected by splattne♦ Jan 3 '11 at 7:16

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