Question Mark in Address Bar

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tom Hall
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T

Tom Hall

64-bit Vista Home Premium

When I got this system about a week ago, I discovered that by simply typing
a question mark into the taskbar's address followed by a search term would
generate a google search just as if I had opened a browser window and typed
the search string in there.

That feature has for some reason stopped working. With both Firefox 3 and
IE7 if I attempt the same operation now, ?searchterm gets translated into
http://?searchterm which of course doesn't work.

This is my first Vista machine so I probably changed a setting somewhere
that altered this behavior. I'd really like to get it back - especially
since I've learned that there apparently is no integrated Google taskbar
that can be placed into the Windows taskbar as I used to have on my old XP
machine.

TIA,

Tom
 
64-bit Vista Home Premium

When I got this system about a week ago, I discovered that by
simply typing a question mark into the taskbar's address followed
by a search term would generate a google search just as if I had
opened a browser window and typed the search string in there.

That feature has for some reason stopped working. With both
Firefox 3 and IE7 if I attempt the same operation now, ?searchterm
gets translated into http://?searchterm which of course doesn't
work.

This is my first Vista machine so I probably changed a setting
somewhere that altered this behavior. I'd really like to get it
back - especially since I've learned that there apparently is no
integrated Google taskbar that can be placed into the Windows
taskbar as I used to have on my old XP machine.

TIA,

Tom
Click to expand...

Put a space after the question mark

? searchterm

not

?searchterm
 
Put a space after the question mark

? searchterm

not

?searchterm
Click to expand...

Doesn't work. It gets turned into http:///? searchterm and the invalid
URL message appears, after which a brower window opens, but does not
complete the search.

Sorry - I didn't notice before that there were three slashes after the
http:

When it worked, the URL became http://search.google.com followed by a long
string of alphanumeric characters including the text of the search string.

Tom
 
This is my first Vista machine so I probably changed a setting somewhere
that altered this behavior. I'd really like to get it back - especially
since I've learned that there apparently is no integrated Google taskbar
that can be placed into the Windows taskbar as I used to have on my old XP
machine.
Click to expand...

A thought just occurred to me. About 3 days after I got this machine
Windows Update pushed SP2 at me. That _might_ have been about the time the
feature stopped working.

Just a wild speculation...


Tom
 
Doesn't work. It gets turned into http:///? searchterm and the
invalid URL message appears, after which a brower window opens,
but does not complete the search.

Sorry - I didn't notice before that there were three slashes after
the http:

When it worked, the URL became http://search.google.com followed
by a long string of alphanumeric characters including the text of
the search string.

Tom
Click to expand...

Have you tried resetting the default search engine?

Open IE and to the right of the search box in the top right click the
small black triangle and select "Manage Search Providers"

Set another as the default then try again.

If that doesn't work maybe someone else has more info.
 
Have you tried resetting the default search engine?

Open IE and to the right of the search box in the top right click the
small black triangle and select "Manage Search Providers"

Set another as the default then try again.

If that doesn't work maybe someone else has more info.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I guess I didn't make myself clear. I'm referring to the address bar
that can be set to appear in the Windows taskbar, not the Address bar in
the browser.

And IE is not my default browser - Firefox 3 is.

When the search from the address bar worked, it worked in both browsers -
whichever one I would have set as the default at the time.


Tom
 
Sorry, I guess I didn't make myself clear. I'm referring to the
address bar that can be set to appear in the Windows taskbar, not
the Address bar in the browser.

And IE is not my default browser - Firefox 3 is.

When the search from the address bar worked, it worked in both
browsers - whichever one I would have set as the default at the
time.


Tom
Click to expand...

I understood which address bar you were talking about.
You can change the default search engine for the taskbar address bar
the way I explained.
 
I understood which address bar you were talking about.
You can change the default search engine for the taskbar address bar
the way I explained.
Click to expand...

I tried setting the default search engine to Yahoo but it made no
difference. The ? search is still broken.


Tom
 
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