How to Add a Custom Web Search to the Run Command

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Do you use the Run command all the time? Does your web browser load slowly? Do you want to reduce the number of mouse clicks and keystrokes when searching The Internet?

If you can answer "Yes" these questions, then this article is for you. You can quickly and easily start internet searches without having to first load up your browser. After creating a shortcut, open the Run command, type a one-letter shortcut, a space, and your keywords.

Steps

1. 1
   
   

   
   
2. 2
   Open the "create shortcut" wizard. For example,
   • File>New>Shortcut
3. 3
   Type the location of the item and click Next. In this case the item is the Internet Explorer filepath plus a URL.
   
   

   Exclude the query string from the URL. Wrap the filepath with quotes but do not the URL. For example,

   • "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.google.com/search?q=
4. 4
   Type a name for this shortcut then click Finish. Just one or two letters will do. For example,
   • "g"
5. 5
   Open the run command. This can be accomplished by hitting "winlogo + R".
6. 6
   Type the new shortcut, plus a space, plus a search keyword, then hit enter For example,
   • g ferraris

   
   

Tips

• This method relies upon use of the "query string" and its components. It is the part of a search engine URL used to return results. It contains field-value pairs and the ampersands (&) that separate them.
• The field-value pair contains a field, an equals sign, and a value. The series of pairs begins after a question mark and the pairs are separated by ampersands. The pairs are formatted as such, field=value. For example, q=ferraris.
• Be sure that the field-value containing the search keywords is the last one in the search string. It is often in the middle of the URL. The order of the field-value pairs usually does not matter; but for this method, the main pair goes to the very end. For example, move the pair q=ferraris to the end. Notice how this example shows q=ferraris originally at the beginning of the query string, then moved to the end. The field-value pairs are green and the main one is bold.
  
  
  • http://www.google.com/search?{{{1}}}&{{{1}}}&{{{1}}}&{{{1}}}
    *http://www.google.com/search?{{{1}}}&{{{1}}}&{{{1}}}&{{{1}}}
• Some searches that you can add to your run command:
  • "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.google.com/search?q=
  • "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?s=int&q=
  • "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
  • "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/
  • "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://btjunkie.org/search?q=
  • "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://images.google.com/images?q=
  • "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=

Warnings

• This has not been tested with Firefox, Opera, etc. Does it work?

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft Windows
• 
  

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