Server failed to start. Could not bind socket. Address and port are already in use.

I checked Services and found IIS running. After I disabled IIS the hosts server started right up.

What operating system and Service Pack level are you running?

XP SP2, but I must have turned IIS on a while ago when I was setting up a server and trying to figure it out. Then I guess I forgot to turn IIS off when I was done. :rolleyes:

What version of WinXP and when did you last update it?

Did you apply any IIS updates?

If you are using the remote desktop service IIS must running (my PC: XP professional SP2). Therefore to finish the IIS Service to get a functional hosts server on the local PC is not a convenient solution. Is there another solution? IIS update, why?

Additional question from a newbie: Does HostMan fullfill its task without running the hostsserver? If the answer is YES one can ignore this informative(?) service and can keep IIS running.

First, HostsServer is not essential. In fact, you can install HostsMan without HostsServer, you simply won't be able to take advantage of its features, which are:
* speed up surfing (there's no delay when sites are blocked)
* display a message or an image when content is blocked
* log blocked urls

As for IIS, HostsServer is not incompatible with it. What happens is that you cannot have two applications listening to the same port. Because HostsServer listens to port 80 (that's the default port for http), you cannot have another application listening to that port, otherwise HostsServer will not work.

I've never used IIS, but I have Apache HTTP Server installed and both are running side by side. The only thing I had to do was to configure Apache to listen to port 8080 instead of the default port 80. I don't known, however, if Remote Desktop requires port 80 or if you can change that.

FYI:
My hostsserver stopped starting after a couple of years.
Server failed to start.

Turns out, here in the UK, that on line media provider "Sky Player" runs a program called Kontiki that auto starts a service 'K Manager' that conflicts with localhost:port; although 80 was not one of the ports listed.

Stopping the K Manager service and setting it to manual solved my problem.

HTH,
eddacker

Welcome eddacker

Thanks for posting the solution for your problem.

I have played a little bit with the apache software and I failed not surprisingly. Today I looked up the information of my setup of IIS and found an entry where I could change port 80 to port 8080 what I have learnt from your answer. Heureka! Until now I was not confronted with any kind of problems. HostsServer is now running without complaining. :D

That's good to know. :)