http://www.example.com not working

[John Zwikstra]

I am a newbie and am stuck on page 37 of the manual when trying to set everything up on my local machine. When I edit the hosts file and add what is required, nothing changes. local host brings up the xampp screen but when i type www.example.com into my browser, I get the message you have reached this web page etc. I use firefox as my browser and it gives me the same message on explorer either. I am using a laptop connected wireless to a router. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Izoralee]

Make sure Apache & MySql are running in the Xampp control panel. That's what messed me up the first time :)

[John Zwikstra]

They are and they were

[canopy]

Try finishing up the "Configuring Apache" section on pg 37-38 and re-start your PC if necessary.

[John Zwikstra]

Makes no difference, still get the same message. localhost still works fine

[Vger]

As this is for a local (offline) install I suggest you use http://localhost/folder_name

It's always going to be much more difficult to get Apache to use a specific domain-based host name, and there's no benefit for yourself in doing that. The only difference is that you would see http://www.example.com in the browser instead of http://localhost/folder_name

Vger

[John Zwikstra]

Hi and thank you for the reply. I am still trying to find out why example.com does not work for my information.

[DrByte]

If you mistakenly saved your "hosts" file as "hosts.txt" then your edits will be of no value. Notepad has a habit of adding the .txt

I would recommend a double-check of the contents of your hosts file.
If you're absolutely certain that the file is the correct file, then post the contents here.

[John Zwikstra]

Hi
I deleted what was in the file, resaved it in it's original format. I then re-edited the file and saved it and now it works just fine. Thanks for everyone's input. It is appreciated.