Originally Posted by Olethros

Older versions of windows need the loopback address - 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file for windows to work properly.

On recent versions of windows, the hosts file is by default empty.

Correct. If you're running on Windows XP, you'll want to make sure this additional line is in the hosts file:

Code:

127.0.0.1 localhost

Windows Vista + Windows 7 do not have this requirement, local host resolution is done in a different place now (as it should have been a loooong time ago )