Using virtualhosts with MSIE without connecting to the internet

[BostonChowder]

I do a lot of php script testing on my home box Win 98SE. I have apache running with virtualhosts set up and pointed to in my hosts file.

In order to mimic what happens on the live server I have created the domains hosted on my computer with the tld of .bob so I connect to mydomain.bob instead of mydomain.com and I access the version hosted on my computer.

The problem is that I can only access these in IE when I am connected to the internet. Opera and my WebTV viewer can do it, but IE 5 must be connected.

Are there some settings I can change in the DNS lookup on my computer that will have it check for certain domains locally before connecting online?

 

[InnoTech]

check into setting proxy setting up. refference this site for a little info. thanks to another post.

http://tech.tln.lib.mi.us/lockinie.htm

"Jack of all trades. Master of none."

 

[BostonChowder]

I found that thread here: thread608-494818 it did not work for me. IE still wants to connect to the internet the moment I click a Fully Qualified Domain Name, including my own.

I need to find a way perhaps to set up a DNS system on my PC, but there has got to be asimpler/smarter way.