Hosts File problem

[Bigotes]

Hey guys, firstly let me thank you for a great job all these years. It's great seeing that the original nature of the internet (eg. forums where people helped the internet community out of the sheer desire to help) is still alive somewhere (although unfortunately in fewer and fewer places).

I hope you can help me with this. I looked around for threads with similar issues but was unable to find any so far, were one to exist already, all I'd need is an arrow pointing in the right direction.

I regularly run Spybot's trio (Check for Problems, Immunization and Hosts) after downloading any existing updates. For the last couple of months however, I've been hit with the following message when running the latter:

Cannot create file "c:\Program Files\Spybot - Search _ Destroy\%SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts" The system cannot find the path specified.

Any ideas? Do I have to re-install, create a dummy directory, delete any existing files... Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Al
(Australia)

[md usa spybot fan]

Your HOSTS file is missing.

Download the attacted HOSTS.zip file. Depending on what Windows OS you are running unzip (extract) the attached HOSTS.zip file into one of the following directories:
Win 95/98/ME = C:\WINDOWS
Windows 2K = C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Windows XP = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC

[Bigotes]

Thank you, however the link above downloads a php file. Tried opening it and will only do so with Getright so far, yet I can't find within it the .zip file indicated :)

Al

[md usa spybot fan]

Bigotes:

Start Notepad:
Click Start, click All Programs, point to Accessories, click Notepad.
Copy the following code into the Notepad window:

127.0.0.1 localhost
Click File in the tools menu and click on "Save As…".
Use the "Save in:" area of the "Save As" window to navigate to one of the following directories:

Windows 95/98/ME = C:\WINDOWS
Windows 2K = C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Windows XP = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC

In the "File name" area of the "Save As" window type "HOSTS" (no quotes).
In the "Save as type" area of the "Save As" window use the pull down menu to select "All Files".
Click the "Save" button.