Kill Search Behaviour

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill Martin
  • Start date Start date
B

Bill Martin

How do I drive a stake through the heart of IE's attempts at searching?

Somehow I did this earlier, but I just had to replace a hard drive, reload
XP-Home, reload SP2, etc., etc. At the end of the exercise IE is back to its
default of calling up search engines constantly when I DO NOT want any. If I
want one I'll call it up myself. If IE truly can't find a web page, just
give me an error message instead of bumbling around trying to help.

Specifically, IE is being confused by PopFile calling up things like
"localhost:8080". It handled this properly before the drive crash because I
had somehow completely killed the search behaviours but I just don't remember
how I did it.

If someone can help me with this, I'll print it out and keep it forever.

Thanks....

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)
 
Hi Bill :-)



Clearing Autocomplete

Try the following and see it it helps.

Disable Autocomplete

Tools>Internet Options>Content tab>click Autocomplete
Uncheck all the boxes for features you don't want to use
Click Apply
Then OK

or.............

http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers4.htm#autocomplete

Try this:
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/delcache.htm#AutoComplete

also..........

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1585442,00.asp

or ........

Courtesy of Don Varnau

With no programs open,
Run REGEDIT and make your way to this key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\IntelliForms\SPW]
Export that key (Registry> Export.) If you you wish to undo the change,
doubleclicking on that REG file will restore the original registry key.
Then delete the SPW key.
Restart the computer.


also....

Free History Eraser from
http://smartprotector.com/eraser/free-history-eraser.htm will delete the
History folder in Windows 9x,2K, XP.

or.......

TweakUI for XP

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP (TweakUI for XP)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx



If these steps do not resolve your problem, please post back to this thread
with the details and any error messages.

Hope this helps

Jan :)
Smiles are meant to be shared,
that's why they're so contagious.

Please reply to the newsgroup so others may benefit.
Replies are posted only to the newsgroup for the benefit or other readers.

How to make a good newsgroup post:
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
 
Clearing Autocomplete

No, that's not it Jan -- it makes no difference.

To verify that it's indeed IE that's at fault and not something obscure in
the operating system networking or some such I find that I can set FireFox as
the default browser and all is well with PopFile. If I try it with IE as the
browser though, IE immediately moves off to some search web page that gives a
thousand web references to "http://localhost:8080" instead of just showing
that page.

And the quirky thing is that if I access that localhost page with IE *before*
IE is invoked, IE will happily open and show the page the first time. Then
when I click on some link within the page it kicks in the search routine.
But if I already have IE open and try to access localhost, it immediately
goes to the search results page.

What kills me is that I remember this problem from a year or so ago, and that
there was some way to customize IE to kill this penchant for helping when I
don't want it. I can't quite remember though if it was through IE itself, or
TweakUI somehow.

Thanks...

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)
 
To verify that it's indeed IE that's at fault and not something obscure in
the operating system networking or some such I find that I can set FireFox as
the default browser and all is well with PopFile. If I try it with IE as the
browser though, IE immediately moves off to some search web page that gives a
thousand web references to "http://localhost:8080" instead of just showing
that page.
Click to expand...

Another data point is that the problem is as I've described it on the machine
with the new hard disk that I had to rebuild. On another machine however
where I somehow killed the IE search behaviour a year ago, I can type in an
invalid web address and it just returns me an error page "The page cannot be
displayed" rather than invoking a search engine.

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)
 
In
Bill Martin said:
Another data point is that the problem is as I've described it on the
machine with the new hard disk that I had to rebuild. On another
machine however where I somehow killed the IE search behaviour a year
ago, I can type in an invalid web address and it just returns me an
error page "The page cannot be displayed" rather than invoking a
search engine.

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)
Click to expand...

How about Tools - Internet Options - Advanced - scroll down to Search from
the address bar - place a check in 'Don't search from the address bar'?
 
How about Tools - Internet Options - Advanced - scroll down to Search from
the address bar - place a check in 'Don't search from the address bar'?
Click to expand...

I've already got that checked Ron, but still IE will jump to a search when I
tell IE to go to "http://localhost:8080/"

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)
 
In
Bill Martin said:
I've already got that checked Ron, but still IE will jump to a search
when I tell IE to go to "http://localhost:8080/"

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)
Click to expand...

Looks like we both have to keep searching for an answer to this one. Best
of luck.
 
Hi Bill :-)

'k....now...I'm not sure this is what you're actually wanting to do, as it
is still a bit vague to me, but, this is what I've found thus far about
disabling the auto-search process. Hopefully, one of these might help. If
not, then please be more specific as to exactly what it is you want to do.


How To Disable or Change Auto Search in IE



Disable/Change Auto-search in Internet Explorer. This is not really a
security risk but it is important to some people that prefer to keep their
internet surfing to themselves and away from microsoft.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------



Open Internet Explorer >> Click the "search" button >> click the "customize"
button >> click

"Autosearch settings" >> FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS BELOW...........



DISABLE: In the "When Searching" drop down menu, select "Do not search from
the address bar".
if it

takes you to the msn search page or if it gives a "page not found" error. In
this

case, the "page not found" error is what we want.



or....



How do I disable the Internet Explorer Search Companion in Windows XP?

http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBK/tip5300/rh5343.htm




or........



YOU WISH TO DISABLE COOKIES IN YOUR WEB BROWSER

In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

On the Privacy tab, move the slider up for a higher level of privacy.

Select Block all cookies. Cookies from all Web sites will be blocked and
Existing cookies on your computer cannot be read by Web sites.


If these steps do not resolve your problem, please post back to this thread
with the details and any error messages.

Hope this helps

Jan :)
Smiles are meant to be shared,
that's why they're so contagious.

Please reply to the newsgroup so others may benefit.
Replies are posted only to the newsgroup for the benefit or other readers.

How to make a good newsgroup post:
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
 
Problem resolved.

Doing everything you suggested did not produce the desired effect so I
continued to putz around with the thing. One curiosity that I noticed is
that whenever it kicks off to do the undesired search it always went through
the search engine at "www.att.net". Even then if I went in and told it to
use some other search engine, it would still use ATT. Hmmm....

Turns out that my computer, fresh from me installing a new hard disk and
reloading all software, has ATT Worldnet installed as a default ISP somehow.
So I did an uninstall of ATT from CntrlPanel>Add/RemovePgms and everything
suddenly seems to be correct. Somehow ATT was overriding the search
configurations specified in IE directly.

Thanks for your help. I appreciate your efforts...

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)
 
Hi Bill :-)
Problem resolved.

Doing everything you suggested did not produce the desired effect so I
continued to putz around with the thing. One curiosity that I noticed is
that whenever it kicks off to do the undesired search it always went through
the search engine at "www.att.net". Even then if I went in and told it to
use some other search engine, it would still use ATT. Hmmm....

Turns out that my computer, fresh from me installing a new hard disk and
reloading all software, has ATT Worldnet installed as a default ISP somehow.
So I did an uninstall of ATT from CntrlPanel>Add/RemovePgms and everything
suddenly seems to be correct. Somehow ATT was overriding the search
configurations specified in IE directly.

Thanks for your help. I appreciate your efforts...
Click to expand...

You're very welcome! Glad to hear you were able to resolve your problem.
Good job!

Thank you for posting back and letting us know what worked for you, and for
the benefit of other readers who might have a similar problem. :-)

Jan :)
Smiles are meant to be shared,
that's why they're so contagious.
 
Bill Martin said:
I've already got that checked Ron, but still IE will jump to a search when I
tell IE to go to "http://localhost:8080/"
Click to expand...


The search you are seeing may be the last vestiges of the old
AutoScan feature. (It is still needed for that silly Ctrl-Enter shortcut.)
Consequently, if the DNS and HOSTS lookups fail IE starts doing
ridiculous things such as looking for www.localhost.com etc.
When that fails they insert a call to the AutoSearch site (for good
measure?) If that failed they would continue on with www.localhost.net
etc.

Actually, are you sure you are giving it a protocol prefix?
I thought that if you use a protocol prefix that the URL
would be left alone but perhaps not.

In any case, instead of using localhost try using 127.0.0.1 explicitly.
That would avoid such possibilities and uncertainties.

Another thing you could try is putting an entry in your HOSTS file
to make the lookup for the search site fail. Then if the lookup
for localhost was the problem you would see the AutoScan
procedure run through its entire repertoire.


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---
 
Back
Top