Okay, I'm trying to block ad banners on my system.

I do this successfully on my home PC by using the HOSTS file supplied here. For the uninitiated, this is simply a huge list of known ad-banner servers, and it forces them to all resolve to 127.0.0.1. That way, the browser returns page-not-found for every ad that attempts to load.

This works like a charm on my home PC because it is running Win98. My work PC is running Win2k, and I of course run into the "slow system" problem described here. When the hosts file is big, Windows 2000 slows down.

Well, I just saw that they updated their page recently, and the new page says that in order to get Windows2000 working normally with a big hosts file, you can disable the "DNS Client" service and all will be well again. (Note that I am unable to disable the "DHCP Client" as I need that because my PC is on a DHCP network, but disabling DNS client seems to be enough for solving the speed problem anyway.)

My initial experiment seems to bear this out. Disabling the DNS client service makes Win2k work normally (I can still resolve addresses and everything, it seems). However, the ad-blocking features don't seem to be working for me. All the ads still come up. Why?

I've already done the following troubleshooting steps:

- I have verified that the ad sites in question are in fact in the HOSTS file. For instance, when I open up www.bluesnews.com and the ad banner appears on the right side of the screen, I can look at the page source and see what server the ad image is coming from. And then when I look in the hosts file, that server is there, and it should be pointing to 127.0.0.1.

- I have verified that the HOSTS file is in the correct place. On my system, this place happens to be c:\win2k\system32\drivers\etc.

- I have verified that other programs which use the HOSTS file are working correctly. For example, FINDEMPEG properly writes the address of my empeg to the end of the hosts file.

- I have verified that the OS does in fact recognize the HOSTS file and uses it. For instance, I can type PING EMPEG at the DOS prompt, and my car player responds. So if the last line of the hosts file is working, why don't the lines above it work?

Any ideas?