The problem you are likely running into is kix is a 32 bit process, and you are running it on a 64bit OS. Windows (by default) redirects 32bit processes to look in %systemroot%\syswow64 instead of system32, and makes it appear as though files that are most definitely there, are not.
You have a couple of options: $RC=setoption("Wow64FileRedirection","off")
or use sysnative, ie
Code:
if exist("%systemroot%\sysnative\drivers\etc\hosts.")
"found"
else
"not found"
endif
