Change the default search engine in IE via reigstry
Posted on August 17, 2009 at 5:09 am
If you are under a corporate network that has its own implementation of IE settings – most likely your default search engine is Live Search (now called Bing). You can verify this by opening IE and entering a search term in the search box at the upper right side of the IE window.
In the example below I typed “utah jazz” and the result comes out at the main part of the IE window:
As you can see bing is my default search engine – so how do we change this so that we could set Google as the default search engine or some other site? This is easy to do and can be done by a simple registry trick. First let’s create a reg file that will contain commands to insert keys into the Windows registry.
Open Notepad then type everyting below:
CODE
REGEDIT4[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
“Search Page”=”http://www.google.com”
“Search Bar”=”http://www.google.com/ie”[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchURL]
“”=”http://www.google.com/keyword/%s”[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search]
“SearchAssistant”=”http://www.google.com/ie”
Save the file as “google.reg” – make sure to include the double quotes otherwise it will only be saved as .txt file:
Browse the folder then double click the file. At the prompt click YES:
This will change your IE’s default search engine to Google. Try using the same trick above for your other search engines! You only need to use the registry hack when the Administrator has locked down the computer and you can’t chnage the settings via the GUI interface. Enjoy!
Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done!
» Filed Under Internet Explorer Tips
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Did exactly as instructed. Keep getting error:
Cannot import google.reg: The specified file is not a registry script. You can only import binary registry files from within the registry editor.
I’ve used the same procedure on other reg files. Please assist?
Unfortunately, in my case, this didn’t work and I got and error saying that the file was not a scripted registry file and that it was not in the correct format even after following your instructions. I kept the quotes in when saving it too. But still, an easier method is shown in the diagram below:
http://nethighrise.com/images/_ieChangeSearch.jpg
If you click on the drop down arrow in the right side of the search box, it brings up this window. From there you can choose what search engine you want to use in IE.
Dean
The above code works as a registry change – you just need to remove the word “CODE” from the text.
Starting the REG file with the REGEDIT4 line should result in success – and yes, there are easier ways to do this, but this is one option.
Is this really the only way to change the search provider in IE? I’m guessing that even in IE is locked down, there has to be an easier way.
Almost all search engines are snoops and sell your e-mail address for a song but I chose “The Start Page” as my search engine. Never looked back at the others. By the way, why would I choose Microsoft’s recommendations? It may be easier but I’m sure Internet privacy is as bad as Google. Maybe I’m living on another planet but I detest spam and empty all but the cookies I want often during the day.
startpage.com/do/metasearch.pl. Just as I thought. Internet Explorer “couldn’t” add it. A shame I’ll have to clean the registry of the tweak but it was worth a try. I’ll continue using an alternate browser for my searches. The Start Page search engine yields the same results without popups and should give me at least a modicum of privacy.