www.microsoft.com and hosts file wierdness. Why?
From a Windows XP SP3 machine with all patches I ping www.microsoft.com and
it hits 65.55.21.250
I then add the following line to my hosts file
127.0.0.1 www.microsoft.com
I flush dns
ipconfig /flushdns
I then ping www.microsoft.com and it still resolves to 65.55.21.250
Why?
it hits 65.55.21.250
I then add the following line to my hosts file
127.0.0.1 www.microsoft.com
I flush dns
ipconfig /flushdns
I then ping www.microsoft.com and it still resolves to 65.55.21.250
Why?
I assume you tested with sites other than microsoft.com to ensure that DNS actually was being flushed and that the hosts file was being included.
I would guess it would be to ensure that viruses can't redefine the ip address. I think this is within Microsoft's since they are the author's of the OS. If they were to do the same for other sites that they didn't own, I would say that is crossing the line.
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I did try others and they worked fine.
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I'm pretty certain that Ben is correct; this is a security protection put in place to prevent malware from blocking/redirecting traffic to Microsoft.
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That is what I decided too, but I thought it was odd that I couldn't find any documentation on it.
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