How to change Internet Explorer search assistant programmatically?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1149418

  •  18-09-2019
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Question

Folks,

I am developing Browser Helper Object, that has to change search assistant URL in Internet Explorer 6.

I have discovered on the web, that it can be done by writing new "Search assistant" value into registry "HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search". However when I write it manually nothing changes in IE behavior.

I'll appreciate any suggestions on this issue.

Was it helpful?

Solution

To set the Search Assistant URL (the one that appears by the side on clicking the IE6 Search Toolbar button) to a specific site, the registry entries are actually these:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
    Search Bar (REG_SZ, put the URL here)
    Use Custom Search URL (REG_DWORD, should be 1)

Note that this doesn't change the search engine you use to search from the address bar. Microsoft appears (in XP SP2) to have hard-coded this to go to 

http://auto.search.msn.com/response.asp?MT=TheQuery&srch=4&prov=XXXX

Where prov is something "approved" like msn, gogl, lyco, etc. You can set this 'prov' in 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl
    provider (REG_SZ)
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