Mark, this is an old thread, but thanks for your contribution.
My understanding of the host file has not been to delete any of the entries, but just to "comment them out" by putting a "# " at the start of the line. Your solution of changing any part of the name would also remove the block, so that's equally as effective.
However, I'm not sure there's any limit of the hosts file size in Win10, or any version of Windows for that matter. Like
Sonic67, I've used the hosts file and the included Admin-level batch file utility from winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm for many years, and I'm able to add or delete any number of lines from the hosts file in Notepad, and there are no problems when I update using the batch file on my Win10 system.
Did you get some kind of error message by trying to edit the "live" version stored in the \sys32\driver\etc folder? The
mvps.org batch file lets you work with an offline version, then renames the existing hosts file and copies the new version to the "live" folder all in an instant. That should work for you as well.
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