MSN Messenger Hosts File Error

Ever tried signing into MSN and got an error message? Then when you run the sign in checker thing, it says that the hosts file are the problem. You click the repair button BUT IT DOES NOTHING!!!

So you look it up on the internetz for a solution and according to many tech forums, its the hosts file in C:/WINDOWS/system32/drivers/etc thats the problem. So you go there to find a bunch of hosts files with different names (including one called hosts.msn). You look again at the tech forums and they dont mention a hosts.msn. So you open the basic file thats just called 'hosts' with notepad. When you do this you see:

# Start of entries inserted by Spybot - Search & Destroy
127.0.0.1 www.007guard.com
127.0.0.1 007guard.com
127.0.0.1 008i.com
127.0.0.1 www.008k.com
127.0.0.1 008k.com
127.0.0.1 www.00hq.com
127.0.0.1 00hq.com
127.0.0.1 010402.com
127.0.0.1 Command - Keeping Software Free
127.0.0.1 032439.com
127.0.0.1 www.1001-search.info
127.0.0.1 1001-search.info
127.0.0.1 cs real estate apartment for at 100888290cs.com
127.0.0.1 100888290cs.com

(this goes on for a fair while).

So you once again, you look at your trusty techy forum and they say to look for an entry that involves MSN. So you find

127.0.0.1 winmsn.com

And you think, thats gotta be the one. So you delete that entry just as the nice techy people told you and try to save. Only to have your computer come up with the message that it cannot create C:/WINDOWS/system32/drivers/etc/hosts files, please make sure the filename and path is correct.

Now this angers you, because there is no mention of this on any of the techy forums. So in desperation, you uninstall MSN Live Messenger and go install a much older version...except THIS DOESNT WORK EITHER

So now the only option you can think of is to try a system restore. So you restore the computer to when MSN was working (I.E yesterday). You do this and guess what...IT STILL DOESNT WORK.

Then you remember that that very helpful forum you go to every now and again has a help forum section. This forum has helped you in the past, so it may be able to help you again.

So here i am, asking you guys once again...help?

|Edit| its somehow rightened itself and i can log on again now, but still, it was pretty annoying

It's probably called MSN itself was not working temporarily :D

The hosts file in the windows folder isn't something you want to touch without fully understanding what it does, bit like the registry - your one also looks like it has added protection from Spybot S&D so even less reason for you to be playing around in there :p winmsn.com is nothing to do with msn and is a drive-by ad site and worth being blocked :p