How do I change the search provider in the taskbar address toolbar?

walterono said:

Somehow the search provider in the Windows 7 taskbar address toolbar has changed from Google to Yahoo. I would like to change it back but I have no idea how. I am using IE8 and the search provider there is Google; Yahoo is not even listed; yet the taskbar address toolbar always uses Yahoo ... Where is the setting I need to change?

Did you install a yahoo toolbar?

if the following program is installed on your computer

*** ' Browser Configuration Utility ' (DeviceVM) ***

I reccomend you remove / UnInstall it.

This program hijacks Internet Explorer Address Bar search settings and redirects via a custom search URL that dumps ads with the search results.
( see this image )

For more info click here .

good luck,
OT

I use ExpatShield--and I love it--but I missed a config option during install which allowed the VPN client to hijack my Windows 7 Taskbar Address Tool. Nothing could shake it--uninstall, reinstall, adware hunters, even Revo. My search terms continued to be referred to a private search page...

http://search.expatshield.com/g/results.php?c=s&q={searchTerms}

...which would typically yield no results, and the query would be redirected to Bing. I'm happy for AnchorFree to be incentivised for the traffic--and Bing is a perfectly competent search engine--but after so many years, I'm just better at extracting information from Google's SERP.

mitchell65 said:

Why go to all that fuss and take a chance on messing up the Registry.

The only inconvenience digging around in the registry is all the safeguards and protections you are well-advised to take. As long as you set a Restore Point (Start > Computer Right-Click > Properties > System Protection > Create Restore Point), you should be fine, but I always take a screencap before and after--and save it to an external drive, in case C:/ becomes difficult to access.

Regedit is easy to use and it can search the registry with surprising speed. I entered a fragment of the query string described above, and was soon presented with the offending registry entries to edit (or eliminate):



I just wanted to restore Google Search, so I overwrote the private search string with:

http://www.google.com/search?q={Search Terms}