Hi there,

every time I power on my PC running (XP Home Edition) I get the message
"Cannot create file C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\etc\hosts." - in a window
entitled "spools".  I can't seem to find anything about this on the web.

Anyone any ideas for an Irishman in distress??

GP

To an Irishman in distress from the Mojave Desert.

The HOSTS file is only a text file that is used when you go on the web to
convert the name (microsoft.com) to the number (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx). There
should be a sample in the same folder labelled LMHOSTS.SAM that you can
peruse. It is not really necessary to start or run your system.

So, the question is, what is invoking the HOSTS file on startup? Do you
happen to know what is being started when you start you system? Start > Run
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Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Jerry - with a bit more
digging around I found a remnant of a virus, which was starting a process
called spools.exe in msconfig.  Have removed this now so should be OK. 
Surprised that quite a few virus remnants seem to be floating around my
system (e.g. registry entries etc.) despite me having the latest anti-virus
definitions and having run a full scan earlier today???

GP

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