No Mac OS 9 booting spells trouble for Outlook users

Apple's 2003, Mac OS X only booting Macs are causing trouble for users who need to use remote shared configurations in Microsoft's Outlook, a Mac OS 9-only application.

It seems that some users are having difficulty configuring Classic to use a 'Hosts' file on a Mac OS X-only booting systems. MacFixIt reader Andrew Springer writes:

"Previously, I was able to reboot Mac OS X systems into Mac OS 9, configure TCP/IP to look for the host file and then reboot into OSX. The changes were then recognized in Classic. Although you can configure this type of name resolution in the NetInfo manger application, it only affects OSX apps."

One potential solution for the problem involves connecting an older (Mac OS 9 bootable) system via FireWire, starting the new system in target disk mode and then booting the older system into the OS 9 system on the new computer. However, this is obviously only viable for systems that are in the same physical location.

UPDATE: A potential culprit in this situation may be that users saving the file as an RTF (rich text format) file. Try using SimpleText (in Classic) or BBEdit instead of TextEdit to create/modify your hosts files. Save the file in your Preferences folder in your Classic System Folder and then reboot Classic.

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