Connecting to apache without going online

[Anon]

Hi,

I am having a little trouble retriving php files over an apache server, on windows with Internet Explorer 5.5.

Whenever I type in a URL like: http://loalhost/default.htm I get a little message telling me that the page cannot be viewed offline, and a choice to click either "connect" or "cancel".
When I click "connect", it just brings up the window to dial up my ISP.
If I do dial the ISP and go online, then it finds my local apache server and connects to the page....but does anyone know how I can configure the browser to automatically know to connect to the local apache server, and not to dial up my ISP?

Cheers.

[Anon]

first ping localhost and make sure it resolves to 127.0.0.1

go to Start, Run, type in "command", press enter, type "ping localhost", does it return "reply from 127.0.0.1" ? its a good sign if it does.

The other issue is that IE is almost certainly configured to always dial out whenever you're requesting a web page. It doesn't know that the file is local.

go to Tools menu up top in IE, then Internet Options, then Connections, change it from "Always dial my default connection" to either "Dial whenever a network connection is not present" or "Never dial a connection". try them both. You may need to leave it set to "Never dial a connection" and dial out manually when you want to access the internet.