Hosts file

R

ralph

I am running Win XP SP2 on a 2.8 GHertz Pentium system with 1 GB memory. I
am using the Hosts file from the MVPS web site. It's size is about 274KB. I
have a Comcast cable connection.

The MVPS web site states that a Hosts file larger than 135 KB may cause
Internet Explorer to slow down and suggests changing the Startup Type of the
DNS Client service from Automatic to Manual.

However, as far as I can tell IE's performance does not obviously change if
I disable Hosts (by renaming it) or change the Statup Type of the DNS Client
service. I would character IE's performance in general as good to very good.

Is this what is to be expected on a workstation with my hardware or am I
mssing something?
thanks....ralph
 
R

Ramesh, MS-MVP

Ralph,

My experience with a huge HOSTS file is different. After loading the
desktop, Windows froze for a minute or so. Apart from that I did not face
any problems in Internet Explorer. The freeze problem was resolved after
disabling the DNS Client.

--
Ramesh, MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User

Windows XP Troubleshooting
http://www.winhelponline.com

Windows XP Newsgroup Setup Instructions for Outlook Express:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroupsetup.mspx
 
R

ralph

Ramesh:
Thanks for replying.
I wonder why our systems act differently.
1: Are you using Windows XP Pro with SP2?
2: How much memory do you have? I assume Windows tries to put the contents
of Hosts in memory and perhaps even sorts it to facilitate finding things-
but that's just my assumption.
regards...ralph
 
R

Ramesh, MS-MVP

Ralph,

It was tested very long time ago, even before SP1 was released. I'll test it
again if you want. BTW, the memory installed at that time was 256MB SDRAM.
IIRC, I tracked down the problem by using Task Manager (inspecting the CPU
usage of an svchost.exe process, and then followed by a tasklist.exe
command-line so as to drill-down further to know which service was causing
this). After some trial-and-error, it was the DNS Client.

BTW, I now have 768MB RAM with Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed.

You may be correct. Also, the delay was experienced only after loading the
Desktop.

--
Ramesh, MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User

Windows XP Troubleshooting
http://www.winhelponline.com

Windows XP Newsgroup Setup Instructions for Outlook Express:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroupsetup.mspx
 
R

ralph

Hi Ramish:
If you have the time I would be interested what happens with you current
configuration with DNS Client set to Automatic.
BTW: What precessor are you using?
regards.....ralph
 
R

ralph

Hi Ramish:
Have you had the time to find out what happens with you current
configuration with DNS Client set to Automatic?
regards.....ralph
 
R

Ramesh, MS-MVP

R

Ramesh, MS-MVP

Additional info:

I ran filemon (placed in Startup group) and svchost:916 reads the HOSTS file
for a very long time (that's what caused the delay at startup)

======Filemon=====
6:42:27 PM svchost.exe:916 READ G:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
SUCCESS Offset: 212992 Length: 4096
======Filemon=====

Running Tasklist /svc confirmed that svchost.exe:916 (which is the PID) is
the DNScache service.

Another observation - (YMMV..)
=======================
Also, it _looks_ like IE takes few more milli-seconds to resolve an URL, and
HOSTS is not used dynamically as everything seems to be managed by the
DNSClient service and the HOSTS contents are now in memory.

--
Ramesh, MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User

Windows XP Troubleshooting
http://www.winhelponline.com
http://windowsxp.mvps.org

Windows XP Newsgroup Setup Instructions for Outlook Express:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroupsetup.mspx
 
R

ralph

Ramesh:
Thanks for the info. I was just concerned that my absence of the delay (with
DNS Client enabled) described on the mvps web site might have ment that I
had done something wrong. Don't know whether SP2, additional memory and/or a
fast processor is the cause but it would appear that there is no real need
for me to set DNS Client to manual.
thanks again.....ralph
 

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