Unable to open Amazon.com website

Zander & Pcbugfixer,

My intension was to see if IE 8 would look in the Hosts file. I have added IP address to
hosts files on other computers when they could not access a paticular site. When IE opened the site came up. I opened Hosts file and deleted the entry and the site still came up. Some times IE for what ever reason needs to be told where the HOST is.
This also happened in old Netscape. Most Virus software can be set to block access to the host file - even some spyware software.

If ozpy wants to try the hosts file thing - the IP address for amazon.com might need to be updated where ever ozpy lives. This can be found using the PING command. Click Start -> Run type in CMD and press OK.
In the window type PING www.amazon.com and you should see shomething like this.
Pinging www.amazon.com [207.171.166.252] with 32 bytes of data:
What I have marked in RED is the IP address - Don't include the [ or ].
You might not get a response from the site - the server is probably set not to echo or answer ping's.
put the information in the HOSTS file like this:
207.171.166.252 www.amazon.com The IP might be different.


If the modification of the hosts file does not work. Then I would suggest what I posted before about uninstalling IE8 and trying IE7 to see if it has the same problem.
If not then reinstall IE 8 and see if amazon.com can be accessed.

 

Thanks Zander for explaining it better. Yes a windows installation created the file, however it has no URL entries other than the examples which are in-active and it is the user or 3rd party applications or Utilities that ad the active URL or IP entries.

This file in my experience does get corrupted and deleting it does no harm to the OS installation and can be re-created at any time.

If you are skeptical about deleting it and the .backup files, then rename them or move them to a temporary folder, then reboot and you should have every site load in IE.

This file in older, like Win 95 installations, placed this file in the Windows folder and from XP upward placed it in the " C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc " folder. I don't care where it is, in that it can be deleted and any of its *.backup files.
Do you want this fixed, or are we going to debate the other Browsers that load the page, or not.

After SpyBot Search & Destroy creates it on all of my Workstations, and I or my Customers have any URL loading issues, the 1st step I take is to delete this file and then check the Internet Properties, which fixes the issues every time!

pcbugfixer

 

Last Report for now.
I uninstalled IE8 -though not as simple as expected- and attempted to install IE7. The installation was halted by the software because Windows 7 does not support IE7. I "reinstalled" IE8 was unable to open Amazon.com I have Chrome also installed for accessing Amazon. I may return to it later.

Thank you all for your suggestions and interest.
Trevor Australia

 

I see this thread got marked resolved. Did I miss something or is that a mistake?

 

Hi Fellas

No The problem isn't resolved - it's just "out to lunch ". It got to where the Advisors were disagreeing, so thought it was time for a break. I was already suffering compassion fatigue when I posted the problem. Running up and down the ladder to try out "new ideas" was getting tiring and time consuming.
I have a method around the problem for now so will wait for more to become known about Windows 7 and IE8 problems.

Thanks for your interest
Trevor – Australia