Where is the default 404 messege?

[rainrtw]

Simple as the title says, or rather maybe not so much. Yes I know there is and endless stream of pages,blogs, and tutorials about how to makes a custom 404 error message for your web page and NO that is not what i am asking about, just to clear that up right off. Yes I have searched around but all I find is info on setting a custom error page for your website.

What I am asking is this, where is the default 404 error message stored in your local machine? You know the one you see if the web master did not make a custom 404 for you to see. I want to know how to edit the default page MY browser displays if it fails to find a page and there is no fancy custom 404 page for that domain. It is obviously written in html and thus should be easily customized.... if only I could find the darn thing. I guess the next thing is to start randomly opening files with a resource hacker to find it.

I am using Firefox on Windows XP if that makes a difference. I think it does since I believe the default error pages are unique to each browser.

 

[hang-the-9]

The default 404 error does not come up from your browser but rather the site where the error came from, which is why you can't find it on your computer. It's a page the web server displays for you, not some-thing built-into your browser.

If you install ISS or some other web server on your PC you will find it amongst the built-in files.

Have you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/404_error?

 

[rainrtw]

Ah well that does make sense I suppose. I really was hoping for an easy way to re-skin that as well to match the rest of my setup but it can't be helped, aside from user-styles css setups I suppose. Thanks for answering it saved me from more fruitless searching.

 

[rainrtw]

Best answer selected by rainrtw.