What is the LMHOSTS file?
LMHOSTS or LAN Manager Hosts file is used to enable Domain Name Resolution especially when other methods such as WINS fail. When you install a Windows OS on your system, a file named lmhosts.sam is created. This is a sample file that you can find at the following location. To know more about LMHOSTS, go through the .sam or sample file located in the System32 folder.
Where are LMHOSTS lookup files located?
As mentioned earlier, LMHOSTS is a text file. And you can easily find the file from the following location. There you can see LMHOSTS Lookup files.
Disable LMHOSTS Lookup using PowerShell, Registry, or Adapter Properties
You can enable or disable LMHOSTS Lookup with the help of the following methods: Let us talk about them in detail.
1] PowerShell
Let us start with PowerShell. Launch PowerShell from the Start Menu and execute the following commands: Wait for it to complete and LMHOSTS Lookup will be disabled.
2] By Registry
If you are familiar with Registry Editor and not with PowerShell, you can use it to disable LMHOSTS Lookup. Before moving forward, we recommend you create a backup of your registries. You can do that by File > Export > Save your Backup file. After creating the backup, use the following steps to stop the LMHOSTS Lookup. Open Registry Editor from the Start Menu. Go to: Double-click on EnableLMHOSTS set Value data to 0, and click Ok. This will disable the protocol for you.
3] By Adapter Properties
Now, if you think both methods mentioned above are technical, you can do the same thing by Adapter Properties and in this section, we are going to see how to do the same. To disable LMHOSTS Lookup using Adapter Properties, follow the given steps. This is the easiest way by which you can disable LMHOSTS lookup. That’s it! Read Next: How to enable or disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP.
