[RESOLVED] cant access company email/hosts files

I hope you all can help, We had 98se on our computer here, using outlook, we were able to access our company mail through exchange. The company freaked out one day when a virus went around and locked out anyone that wasnt directly on the network. We made a hosts file and it wont work on my machine here at work, I put M.E. (bad move, but I had to check it out) and the file wont work. They claim it works on all the 98 machines that were having the same problem. I put the same hosts file in my machine at home with win2000pro and I still couldnt get a ping. Anyway, I would really rather not put 98 back on this machine. I would rather put 2000pro on it. Is there any reason why the hosts file wouldnt work on either of these two windows os ? and only 98? and if so, why? and how do I get around it? Thanks, Deborah

You may want to check and reconfirm the ip addresses listed in your hosts file...also double check case sensitivity
the host file should work fine on either O/S
also make sure its in the windows directory