In situations like switching the web hosting to Pickaweb (When your domain is pointing to the old server and you want to test the site in our Server), we can use this method to access your site. This is especially useful when developing your site on our server and the nameservers are not pointed to us yet, and you are working with domain-name-dependent software like Joomla,WordPress etc.
The following steps are for Windows users.
1. You need to find the location of the host file as per your Operating System.
Windows XP Home/Vista/Windows7 >> c:windowssystem32driversetchosts
Windows NT/2000/XP Pro >> c:winntsystem32driversetchosts
Windows 95/98/Me >> c:windowshosts
2. Note: Hosts is the name of the hosts file and not another directory name. It does not have an extension (extensions are the .exe, .txt, .doc, etc. endings to filenames).
3. Take a copy of “hosts” file and keep it in the system, so if needed we can restore this file.
4. Open your hosts file in Notepad and add the following entry.
Your IP address Your domain name
(Eg: 85.13.219.82 test.com)
After making the changes, save the hosts file and restart your web browser. This should force those sites to resolve to the given IPs. If you would like you can also use the free hosts file modification programs for this purpose. (Eg: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Security-Related/Hoster.shtml)