TCP/IP in Windows 2000 Professional

TCP/IP in Windows 2000 can be configured to search Hosts (the local host table file) for mappings of remote host names to IP addresses. The Hosts file format is the same as the format for host tables in the 4.3 Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) UNIX /etc/hosts file. For example, the entry for a computer with an address of 192.176.73.6 and a host name of client1.reskit.com looks like this:

192.176.73.6client1.reskit.com

By using a text editor, you can create and change the Hosts file because it is a simple text file. An example of the Hosts format is provided in the file named Hosts in the Windows 2000 % SystemRoot% \System32\Drivers\Etc directory. Edit the Hosts file (created when you install TCP/IP) to include remote host names and IP addresses for each computer with which you communicate.