Customizing Vista's Instant Search

It isn't perfect, but Wikipedia is definitely one of the sources of information I turn to when I am trying to find out more about a topic. Of course, as far as networking technologies are concerned, I am a bit biased towards the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking (just some shameless self-promotion again). And since I use Wikipedia so often, wouldn't it be nice if I could search Wikipedia directly from the Start menu? Well, with Windows Vista, you can!

Here's how you can add a "Search Wikipedia" option to the Instant Search box on your Start menu:

1. Press the Windows Key+R keystroke combination, type gpedit.msc and click OK to open Local Group Policy Editor on your Vista machine.

2. Open the User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Instant Search\Custom Instant Search Internet Search provider policy setting.

3. Enable the policy setting, type Search Wikipedia in the first textbox and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%w in the second textbox, and click OK.

4. Open a command prompt and type gpupdate/force to immediately apply the new policy setting.

Now when you click the Pearl and type Bruce Willis into the Instant Search box on your Start menu, you'll see three (instead of two) search options immediately above the Search box:

Search Everywhere

Search the Internet

Search Wikipedia Click the third option (the new one) and Internet Explorer will immediately open to the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Willis and you can read all about my favorite movie actor -- much more fun than reading articles about IPv6, QoS, and that other nerdy stuff!