How to change properties of custom control?

Help with permission to change HOSTS on Windows Vista?

• Hello. I was wondering if anyone knew how to change permission on Windows Vista when doing a change(add, delete etc) to the HOST files? I'm trying to change my HOST file but it seems I can't do anything to it as I need permission. I tried going to properites and then security, to see if I could go around it but authenticated users and my computer in general can't change the permission. When trying to change the HOST files, it says "This file is set to read-only. Try again with a different file name." I'm trying to replace the original HOST file with an edited version. Could someone help me out step by step? I know how to search for the host file in administrator setting. The problem I'm having is that when I try to save the changed HOST file, it says "This file is set to read-only. Try again with a different file name." My problem is, I can't seem to save the file. I'm not sure how to go around around this. I went to properties and then security to see if I could have permission to have full control and change it, but I couldn't check or uncheck. So I tried pulling the HOST file out of the directory and into another directory but that didn't work. So then I tried copying the HOST file onto my desktop, tried changing it there and planned to exchange it for the old HOST file but I still couldn't edit anything out of that HOST file. I'm still stuck on this step. Could somebody help me out? The reason I'm asking this is because I see some links in there that shouldn't be there and I think that was the cause of me getting random redirects from my browser. I just need to get the links gone. Thanks! Greatly appreciated!

• Answer:

  In normal use you should NEVER change it. There is never any need to change it. If this is for a program which tells you to mess with it, dump the program rapidly and run a full scan with a good spyware scanner. Most programs asking for these changes are badly infected and the host changes described are aimed at not letting the system access Microsoft or other sites which might identify the infection, or to prevent any anti-malware from fixing it. And in a lot of cases the changes actually make the machine pass on personal information to the originator.