Maybe it's from back before Windows had a built-in TCP/IP stack? If it were a third-party/optional driver, having files related to it in a path under system32\drivers would make sense.
Back around Win 95 when they added networking it was based off of (IIRC) BSD's TCP stack and related tools. They were an optional 'third party' driver of sorts, but shipped by the first party. I'm not positive about WinNT or Win3.11 (for workgroups?)
I occasionally try to search for the reasoning behind the location of the hosts file in Windows, and I always come up blank.
https://superuser.com/questions/355297/why-does-windows-have...
Maybe it's from back before Windows had a built-in TCP/IP stack? If it were a third-party/optional driver, having files related to it in a path under system32\drivers would make sense.
Back around Win 95 when they added networking it was based off of (IIRC) BSD's TCP stack and related tools. They were an optional 'third party' driver of sorts, but shipped by the first party. I'm not positive about WinNT or Win3.11 (for workgroups?)
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They originally copied BSD's network stack, IIRC