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 u

Answer 1

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.