hosts file and multiple sub-domains
You can also put all the host names for an IP address on the same line:
127.0.0.1 x.com www.x.com sub1.x.com sub2.x.comIf you have a lot of sub-names, it would certainly be easier with a wildcard but unfortunately this is not supported with the hosts file.
Alternatively you could download the trial version of Simple DNS Plus which you can use to run a local DNS server on your XP machine (make sure to setup TCP/IP to use 127.0.0.1 for DNS). This allows you to setup wildcard entries like *.x.com.
You can repeat the same IP address several times to redirect multiple host names. You have to list the full host names though -- you can't list domain names or wildcards and expect all hosts in that domain to redirect to the IP address.
127.0.0.1 x.com127.0.0.1 www.x.com127.0.0.1 sub1.x.com127.0.0.1 sub2.x.com