I've gone from Windows 98 on my main computer to Vista - quite a change! It's pretty, though I am slowly turning off merely cosmetic things that suck up processor (and battery) power! Many of the changes seem to be good ones, in the long run, though getting used to the new way of doing things does take some time.

The hosts file is in Windows\System32\drivers\etc as a quick google for vista hosts file location told me. I also found it with a search on the computer, once I found where to tell it "yes, show me the location of system files". Now, to figure out how to make that the default.

Have fun with the new computer!