Isolated Shell: Setting default search page

Question

Hello,

I'd like to customize the default search page used by the web browser in an isolated shell.  In my shell pkgdef I have this url specified in two ways.  I first tried modifying the "DefaultSearchPage" that is listed under [$RootKey$] to my custom search url and that did not work (note: the DefaultHomePage DID work).

I then noticed that under Tools->Options->Environment->Web Browser the Home page AND Search page were different than what I specified.

This key is found in the registry once the application is run.

[$RootKey$\ToolsOptionsDefaults\WebBrowser]

"HomePage"="homepageurl"

"SearchPage"="searchurl"

This key was spotted after I had manually opened the option window and assigned my new settings

[$RootKey$\WebBrowser]

"HomePage"="homepageurl"

"SearchPage"="searchurl"

With those 3 locations of modifying the SearchPage, neither worked at actually changing the search page when the shell is opened for the first time on a user's machine.  The HomePage was correctly displayed in the options after my ToolsOptionsDefaults key change.  Is this a bug or am I missing some simple yet critical detail?  

-Shaun

Answer 1

Hi Shaun,

DefaultSearchPage and DefaultHomePage should be the correct way to set these pages for the Isolated Shell and you shouldn't need to set any other registry values. 

If DefaultSearchPage isn't working for you, there might be a bug.  I have not been able to reproduce this issue myself.  Since you mention that you see this issue when a user first launches the shell on a clean machine then I don't think it could be due to stale registry values overriding the default.

Feel free to post any further details which might help us reproduce the issue.

Greg Van Liew
Microsoft Visual Studio

Answer 2

I'm using Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition w/ all of the latest updates.  All I did to reproduce this issue was create a new isolated shell project and replace the "DefaultSearchPage" field and "DefaultHomePage" from the application pkgdef.  The default home page was used correctly.  But when I clicked on the "Web Browser Search" toolbar icon, I am redirected to this url:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=36593&clcid=0x409

It seems as if there is no way to override this.

-Shaun