Cut and paste from otlecs post....

Hi,

The problem I had seemed to revolve around Windows resolving host names to IP addresses.

In my case, it seemed to disappear up its own backside for up to 30 seconds or so when trying to perform a reverse DNS lookup to determine whether the connecting client was local or remote.

The hosts file is a "short cut" for Windows to look up an ip address without going through the normal system services.

The file usually lives in C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc

Modifying it is quite technical, and if you're uncertain after this reply then I suggest you don't do it and try to find another solution.

In brief, though, the steps are as follows:

1. Open the file on every machine in your network (notepad will do).
2. In each file, add an entry for every machine. The format is:

{ip address}<TAB>name

For example:
192.168.1.100 MyMachine1
192.168.1.101 MyMachine2

etc.

Obviously, this relies on static IP addresses on the LAN (or at least the same DHCP-assigned ones every time you start up!).

That's pretty much it. Good luck.
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