When you give your system a URL, in a browser for example,
Hosts is one of the sources the system can use to get an IP
address corresponding to that URL.  LMHOSTS does essentially
the same thing, but starting with NetBIOS names instead of URLs.
They are both rather old devices, from the days when the standard
was UNIX mainframes, but many people have found modern uses
for them.  I'm one of the people who still uses a Hosts file, and I've
used LMHOSTS on my home network.

I assume that the only network you normally use is the Internet.  In
that case, they are almost certainly not necessary.  To substitute
for HOSTS, your ISP has probably already helped you configure
your system to use some of their DNS servers, or has set you up
to let their DHCP server do most of the configuring for you.   As far
as I know, there is no reason ever to use NetBIOS names on the
Internet, so forget about LMHOSTS.

As to problems, I can't imagine how they could ever cause
*connection* problems, but HOSTS could easily cause problems in
*using* the Internet.  A common symptom would be a 400-series
error for a site you know is functioning fine, because its HOSTS
entry is now outdated.  If your mail servers have entries in HOSTS,
your ISP could easily change their IPs without telling you, and
you'll start to get exotic error messages from your email software.

Don't delete them at first.  If you're running Windows, just add a
harmless extension to them and Windows won't find them.
Something like hosts.old and lmhosts.old.  If they are actually
hosts.sam and lmhosts.sam, they have already been neutered, so
they are completely harmless.

Good luck.
David Jonathan Justman

On 22 Jan 2002, at 10:40, David Hurst wrote:

> Can someone tell me what the Hosts and LMHOSTS files are I find in
> Windows Subdirectories ?  What are they for, and are they necessary and
> can then be deleted or modified.  Could they be a source of problems
> connecting to the internet..??

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