Creating FTP “Shortcuts” Using the Windows HOSTS File

by Rich Menga on Feb 18, 2008 | 2 comments

Windows XP has an editable file called HOSTS. It is a text file and located typically at:

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS

This is a plain text file that can be edited. If you use FTP quite a bit, you can use your HOSTS file as a “shortcut” of sorts to assign easy-to-remember local hostnames for FTP server IP addresses. It’s easy to do and only takes a few minutes. See video below for details.

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http://nonesuch curleb
Hey, Rich…
Just wanted to thank you for your tutorial here, as well as Jason Faulkner’s one re running Ubuntu w/in WinXP. Sweet…!
No comparison at all, but here’s an even quicker shortcut for using FTP via URI in exchange (one that even guarantees a GUI window for those non-cmd users):
ftp://login:*@subdmn.ftp_site.com/../../../my_dir
Store this as a shortcut to a frequent FTP location and you have an Explorer-based FTP client ready to go.
Everything up to the @-sign is universal and will enforce a login prompt via Explorer; in domain use it will default to your login id. The site info is whatever your shortcut would need to point to, while the “../../../my_dir” will vary according to your remote host’s directory structure. The example here refers to a UNIX-side $HOME that is 3-levels below the targets parent directory. For example, a Solaris UNIX $HOME of /export/home/my_user would need to back-track to root before trying to get to the target.
Again, not much compared to the guest Ubuntu tutorial, but this serves to deaden the pain from distributed users constantly confused by FTP clients.
Dinis
how do I do this on cmd if i wanted to download files from a ftp server to a different server, by just double clicking on the cmd. thanks