The purpose of changing your HOST FILE on your computer is to see your domain on our system before a DNS change takes effect.

To change your HOST FILE For Windows computers, do the following:

1) From the computer desktop, go to...

My Computer->Local Disk (C:) ->Windows->system32->drivers->etc

2) Once in the /etc directory, click on the file "host" and open it up under "Notepad".

Once open, you will see...
127.0.0.1 localhost

3) Put your cursor and click at the end of localhost, then hit your return key.

4) Now put in the IP address of your domain name, hit the tab button, and then type the name of the domain.

5) Hit return again and put in the SAME IP address as before, hit the tab button and then put in the domain with www. in front of it.

6) Save the file.

7) To access, close ALL browsers and then open them up again. Now go to the domain.

Don't forget to delete what you have done after you are finished!