How to re-read the Windows host file without a reboot
After making a change to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts, file
how do I get XP to see the changes short of rebooting?
You can use the following command from a DOS prompt
ipconfig /flushdns
This will flush the resolver cache, and re-load the hosts file to cache.
To see the contents of your cache file you can also run this command (before and after)
ipconfig /displaydns