Powershell to manipulate host file

Question

I am looking at to see if I can create powershell script to update the contents in the host file.

Anybody know if there are any examples that manipulate the host file using powershell or any other scripting lanaguages?

Thanks.

Answer 1

All of these answers are pretty elaborate. This is all you need to add a hosts file entry:

Add-Content -Path $env:windir\System32\drivers\etc\hosts -Value "`n127.0.0.1`tlocalhost" -Force 

IP address and hostname are separated by `t which is the PowerShell notation for a tab character.

`n is the PowerShell notation for a newline.

Answer 2

First up, if you're on Vista or Windows 7 make sure you run these commands from an elevated prompt:

# Uncomment lines with localhost on them: $hostsPath = "$env:windir\System32\drivers\etc\hosts" $hosts = get-content $hostsPath $hosts = $hosts | Foreach {if ($_ -match '^\s*#\s*(.*?\d{1,3}.*?localhost.*)')                            {$matches[1]} else {$_}} $hosts | Out-File $hostsPath -enc ascii  # Comment lines with localhost on them: $hosts = get-content $hostsPath $hosts | Foreach {if ($_ -match '^\s*([^#].*?\d{1,3}.*?localhost.*)')                    {"# " + $matches[1]} else {$_}} |          Out-File $hostsPath -enc ascii 

Given this I think you can see how to use a regex to manipulate entries as necessary.