Internet Explorer - custom searches

[vardoger]

How do I setup custom searches for Internet Explorer without installing tweakui (e.g. when I type 'goo stars' in the address bar it would query the google search engine with the search term 'stars')? If possible I wan to setup custom searches for other search engines with corresponding short name prefix selectors (e.g. goo = google; y = yahoo; a = altavista) Cheers.

[kempie]

If you are moderately competent in using Regedit you can set up new keys for custom searches in IE. ** BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE MESSING WITH IT ** The keys are placed in [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl] and are named as your short names i.e. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\goo] Set the String Value (Default) to the search URL e.g. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%s N.B. the term %s will be replaced by IE with the search term you enter in the address bar. For further examples see http://www.commandline.co.uk/searchurl/SearchURL.html You can copy (& modify)the text to a file, save with the extension .REG which when double-clicked will merge the new keys into the Registry.

[vardoger]

Fantastic!! Problem solved. Cheers Kempie.

[vardoger]

Back to the drawing board (hmph!) I completed every step as prescribed, but when I type the search into the address bar as 'goo help', I get the following response in the address bar: 'http:///?%20g%20help' A search has revealed nothing of what the entry 'http:///?%20' means. This happens for all searches (using other search engines, and when I type in an unavailable url.

[OBonio]

%20 is the URL encoded version of a space and ? signifies the start of a query string section of the URL.

[vardoger]

Still getting the error when I tried to use the search as prescribed. A lighting storm, necessitating a reinstall of the op sys has cured the problem (after 7 hours of reinstallation and updates....grumble). Now the searches work fine. Not sure why I couldn't get it to work in the first place though (on second thoughts I know why...Windows [no further comment needed]). Thanks all for the help.