Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
Did you know that you don't have to use Microsoft's search engine to search Microsoft sites?

The following "Tip of the Week" from CertTutor.net has generated some interesting activity on the SMS email list over on Topica which is summarised in this article for everyone's benefit.

The original tip suggests using the Google search engine to search Microsoft's Web sites (including its support newsgroups), more effectively than Microsoft's own search engine by adding the 'site:Microsoft.com' string to any searches you submit from Google.

Expanding on this idea you can use the following search criteria to search the Knowledgebase:

site:support.Microsoft.com SMS

Google also has it's own search just for Microsoft related information (thanks to Joe Crawford for this):

http://www.google.com/microsoft.html

Google also seems to be the search engine of choice for the majority of people, but how do get Google to become your default search engine inside Internet Explorer? Here's how thanks to Peter Howard:

From Google http://www.google.com/options/defaults.html#default

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"Search Page"="http://www.google.com"
"Search Bar"="http://www.google.com/ie"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchURL]
""="http://www.google.com/keyword/%s"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search]
"SearchAssistant"="http://www.google.com/ie"

If you don't want to go "playing" with your Registry install the Google toolbar from the Google homepage.