Windows 7: IE9 and adress bar questions

okay I am just going to explain how I have always used my address bar(until recently), but on other systems it doesn't see to work. I have always been able to type in words in the address bar and it would search based on my default search engine. At the same time, which i don't know how this worked, it would use dns short names to resolve addresses locally. For example if I typed ps3 games, it would go to bing and do a search for ps3 games. If I typed in web, it would resolve to http://web/ which is our local web page. I wouldn't have to put a / after web or type in http.

But now this doesn't work and I have only been able to find this information online: One-word Intranet Sites take you to your default search engine with Internet Explorer 9 but even this really doesn't see to function the same. For example if I type in ps3 it automatically changes to http://ps3/, doesn't resolve and then sends it to Bing to resolve.

I don't know, maybe that is how it always worked. But I never had to modify the registry on my system. I have loaded Windows 7 3 times and it just worked. I thought there was an option in ie9 and that is why it didn't work on other systems in the the office.

Any ideas?

Change your default search engine from Bing to Google.

I have Google as default here & typed ps3 into IE9 add bar and got -

https://www.google.com/search?q=ps3&...ddress&ie=&oe=

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

`

It is indeed *slightly* different - if you want to go to a netbios named site (like http://ps3), you simply enter a slash at the end of the name in the address bar (so, type "ps3/" to force it to browse). If you want to force search, you start with a question mark ("? ps3") which will force a search on "ps3" with your default-configured search engine. Otherwise, if you just type a short name (that you haven't visited before, of course) it will do what you are seeing now, which is try to browse, and then send to search if that fails (which is how previous versions if IE handled address bar ambiguity, but most people used the dedicated search bar in the past hence it's not as widely known as the default behavior).

You are correct and I can do the / at the end, but I am telling you for almost a year I could type in jr1 and press enter and it would auto resolve htt://jr1/ which is out Novell management page. Now it simply only searches. My question is what changed.

But again if you read this page you can set single word intranet settings which seems to work. I can't tell if somehow this was turned off, but most ie9 default setting is off.

Anyway thanks for the thoughts.

*** Problem Resolved ***
The problem started with an update for IE9 from Microsoft. If you have IE8 installed you can use single words to open up local web pages instead of searching bing or google unless it can't resolve that name. Upgrade to IE9 and it still works fine. But if you apply all updates this function is removed somehow.

***OneWord Intranet***
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"GotoIntranetSiteForSingleWordEntry"=dword:00000001

I wished an update hadn't changed this, but nothing I can do. It was always nice to just type in JR1 in any system on our network and that would resolve to a local server management page. With the change above we have this ability again.

Thanks!

I can't explain why it worked previously, because it shouldn't have. There's a KB article on this that was released around the time IE9 was released documenting this change:
One-word Intranet Sites take you to your default search engine with Internet Explorer 9

Note that if you redirect IE folders to a non-local location, this seems to break that value change and force back to the old behavior for some reason. Just FYI for folks who redirect IE folders (like favorites) to network folder locations.

It worked because it should resolve single words locally prior to using the search engine, or one would think that it should work. Either way, prior to making the registry change it would never do the one word search with out doing htt://word or word/. What a pain in the back side. Why not just type in word and it automatically take you to http://word on your network. If that doesn't exist then search google.

This is how it worked and works now and I SO prefer it that way. I am not sure why you are talking about redirecting favorites and this has nothing to do with that at all.

In the article you posted it shows what needs to be changed to give you the ONE WORD INTRANET option to work like I have described.

If users want to go directly to the intranet site, then they can either type http:// before the intranet site name or append / to the site name.

Alternatively, you can configure Internet Explorer to go to the intranet site directly by using one of the following methods.

Method 1: Using Tools menu in Internet Explorer:

Click Internet Options, click the Advanced tab, check the option Go to an intranet site for a single word entry in the Address bar.

I was pointing out folder redirection because it breaks this functionality "fix" with the reg value added, and goes back to requiring either http before or / after the one word query regardless of whether the value is set or not.

No it doesn't! If you are saying changing the registry to what I added you are incorrect. I have fixed over 70 systems with that entry(or you can make the change in the browser), but in no way does it break anything. If it did on your system then I would look there.

Without the key you have to type in http://word or word/ other if you type in word it will just search with your search engine. All I am saying is that it ALWAYS worked for me till the updates were applied. this is a function I use a lot.

I think you're missing my point - if you set that value, it then works the way you want it to. If you are using folder redirection on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 system *and* that registry value is in place, the value might not work.