I got a new Windows 7 laptop a couple of months ago and as is my way I decided to install IE9 on it. My only problem was that Bing was set as the default search provider. While there's nothing wrong with Bing for searching I do generally use Google and wanted to make the change. So in the combined search/URL box I click the drop down arrow and selected Add taking me to the Internet Explorer Gallery where I was completely unable to select Google. I set the focus on Search and on Search Providers but still couldn't find Google. I figured something odd was happening with my machine until a couple of weeks later my brother said he was having the same thing when installing Win7 on his Mac.
The solution I discovered was to google "Search Providers" and use the Microsoft link http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-en/default.mspx to use the traditional method for selecting Google UK.
How to enable Google UK as a search provider through IEAK 9
This useful knowledge came in handy yesterday. I'm currently playing about with ConfigMgr 2012 Beta 2 and MDT 2012 to create a Windows 7 image. As part of this I want to include IE9 as part of the reference image.
So I fired up IEAK 9 and went through the steps to create the image. After a fair bit of googling/binging about I struggled to find the URL string required to set the default search provider in IE9 to Google UK. So using the Microsoft link above I followed the "Create Your Own" section.
- Go to www.google.co.uk (or whichever search engine you want)
- Search for TEST
- Paste the URL back into the box under Create Your Own
- Enter the name as Google UK
- Then click View XML
- Now you can copy everything between the quotes under the template section and use that in IEAK9
