Unable to load SharePoint web application on port 80 in a dev domain without internet access

While working in a dev domain that does not have access to the internet, I ran into the following issue with loading SharePoint web application hosted on port 80:

• After creating a new web application on port 80 and a new root site collection, I was unable to access the site. When the users hit the site, they are presented with credential prompts. Because the users are in a domain that does not have internet access, users cannot access the site.
• From event viewer, you may also see the following warning:

Alternate access mappings have not been configured. Users or services are accessing the site https://abc with the URL https://crl.microsoft.com. This may cause incorrect links to be stored or returned to users. If this is expected, add the URL https://crl.microsoft.com as an AAM response URL.

• After searching online, here are a few things I tried to make it work:
  • add the following to the machine.config as follows: 
    • C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\machine.config
    • <configuration>
       <runtime>
        <generatePublisherEvidence enabled="false"/>
       </runtime>
      </configuration>
  • add the following to the hosts file:
    • 127.0.0.1     crl.microsoft.com