Vista - No Localhost web access when disconnected from network

Hello--

I'm very new to Vista, so please, bear with me..

I have a wamp server setup (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) on my Vista Home Premium edition (build 6001).

I've added an entry in my hosts file to point a domain name (eg. localdomain.com) to 127.0.0.1.

When I visit localdomain.com from a web browser (doesn't matter which) while connected to some network (whether it be wired, wireless, or my AT&T mobile data card network, the site loads perfectly fine, receiving it's data from the apache server. However, as soon as I disconnect from all networks, I can no longer access this localhost domain.

I know that I had this working correctly on my XP machine that I used before this one.. and I thought that it worked correctly in the beginning with vista... But I can't figure out for the life of me what is happening now.

If i go to ping the domain, i get back that ping could not find the host. However if i ping localhost, it returns the reply coming from ::1: in less than 1 ms.

Any ideas?? I'm lost and don't know.

Thanks in advance!!

Matt

hi islandskater43
welcome to vista forums
i recommend backing up your data and returnig your PC to a restore point
or restoring to factory defaults(BACK UP YOUR DATA!).you could try contacting microsoft their customer support is highly rated.
thanks

skript kiddie