Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?

Subject: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 04:09 PM

Fairly recently, without (to my knowledge) any action of mine to cause it, the first thing I see in getting on line is Bing, and it doesn't seem to make it possible (or at least easy) to invoke Google. More, I don't find a way to see and use my Bookmarks.

I suspect MacroHype has built Bing into Windows 7 and made it impossible to delete Bing altogether, so I guess my question might be, "How do I declare the automatic homepage to be Mudcat?"

Can one or more of our knowledgeable Gurus guide me on this?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: GUEST,amergin
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 04:37 PM

Bing is not built into Windows 7...it may be the default search engine or toolbar in your browser...especially if you're using internet explorer. We would need to know your browser type in order to assist you.

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: bobad
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 05:25 PM

If you're using Internet Explorer, click on the gear icon top right hand corner then click on "Internet Options". Under the general tab put in the URL for Mudcat (or whatever you want the homepage to be) in the box beside the icon of a house then click "Apply" then "OK"in the bottom right hand corner of the window.That should do it.

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 05:28 PM

There are usually ways to set search engine preferences... but modern browsers have multiple tabs, so you can have Google...or Ixquick..or whatever you wish always 'open' at the top.

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: bobad
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 05:42 PM

To change search engines you will see in the same window that opens for "Internet Options" about 2/3 of the way down, an icon of a magnifying glass and beside it "Change Search Defaults" - click the box labelled "Settings" and a new window opens where you can change your default search engine.

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 06:05 PM

If you're using IE, you may want to right-click on the top bar (almost anywhere blank will do) and you'll get a drop down with a list of things that can be displayed on the bar. Putting a check by the "Menu Bar" puts the familiar "File - Edit - View - Favorites - Tools - Help" list up where you can see it. That should put your Favorites drop-down where they're easy to get to.

You can also put a check beside "Favorites Bar" to place a separate bar at the top. A yellow star with a green arrow on that bar lets you "Add to Favorites Bar" to put a separate icon on the bar for sites you visit really often. (I put the local Obit column there, so I can check whether I died in my sleep and didn't notice. I check it every morning.) Note that it will get really crowded if you put very many things there, so you'll probably still want the familiar drop-down Favorites list.

If your migration to Win7 is recent, you may need to reinstall the Google toolbar, as it seems not to be brought across with other things that the migrate tool does bring across from an older OS. Since Google has released several recent updates, including some with some security patches, you may want to do that anyway. The latest Google toolbar has some changes I don't really care for, but it still gives you lots more search options than I've found in Bing - if you can figure out how to get them set up with the new menus (Google menus and Win7).

Bing appears to be included with "Microsoft Live" or with "Live Essentials" and I believe you can install parts of them without taking the whole thing. I don't recall whether I was able to remove Bing separately, or whether I had to zap the whole thing and put it back with fewer pieces. You do have to install some of "Live Essentials" to get the new "Mail," so you might want to check the Microsoft website for real info about getting Bing off, if you use any of the other "Live" features.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 13 Feb 12 - 05:07 PM

GOOD NEWS (and some not-so-good).

I got rid of Bing with the aid of you folks. That's the GOOD news.
I also found how to make the navigation bar show up, and another whose name I forget,so most of the puzzlements I had have beensolved. So far, so good.

However, I don't have the Bookmarks icon showing up. Any ideas, anyone?

Oh, since someone mentioned or questioned what browser I was using, I'll state that the OS is Windows 7, and the browser that I've been having the problems with is IE for the moment on this computer.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 13 Feb 12 - 10:33 PM

Have you tried customising your toolbar? I don't use IE but in Safari & Firefox, it's under the "View" menu - you'll see Toolbars listed, and on one browser customising is a sub-option and on the other it's the next choice down on the same menu. You normally get a "default set" of icons (what Micro$oft in their wisdom deems you Should Have) but you can drag other icons into & out of it, and there's probably a word-command way of doing it too. (Can't remember offhand and it's silly o'clock at night...) But I have tab & bookmark thingies on my toolbar, and that was how I got them. [Cue Lisa Simpson voice: Eewwww, she has THINGIES on her toolbar...]

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 02:40 AM

DaveO -

If you right click on any blank space in one of the toolbars at the top in IE, you should get a list of toolbars you can show. If you put a check beside the "Menu Bar" it will have "Favorites" on it.

Clicking "Favorites will drop down the list of your favorites, with an "Add to Favorites" click at the top of the drop-down.

Microsoft apparently did away with the Favorites button and replaced it with a Favorites Toolbar, which is another choice you can pick on the list that drops down when you right click one of the other toolbars. (As it displays in my IE9, you'd have room for about 4 favorites on that toolbar.) If you display the Favorites toolbar there should be a yellow star at the left that you can click to "Add to Favorites Toolbar" - but note that that's not the same thing as just "Add to Favorites."

(I find the Menu Bar more useful, especially since I've got about 200 favorites in my list.)

If there's still a Favorites button in IE9, I haven't found it.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: bobad
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 07:17 AM

In IE9, in the top right hand corner, I have three icons , a house (home), a star (favorites, feeds, history) and a gear (tools).

Subject: RE: Tech: How eliminate Bing in Windows 7?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 02:13 PM

bobad -

What you describe are the "basic" icons that likely will be on a default setup. That's fine, and some people may find it sufficient. If you right-click anywhere on the bar those icons are on, you'll get a list of other toolbars you can turn on, just by clicking to put a "check" mark beside them.

But you're right about the Favorites button being there. As usual, Micrrosoft decided that what has worked for decades must be changed and moved the button from it's previous position on the left to the far right, and changed the icon from yellow to white.

Since the "Forward" and "Back" arrows remain at the far left, the "navigation" functions of forward, back, favorites, and history are now split with some at one end and others at the extreme opposite end of the screen. "This is for your convenience."

If you select the "add to favorites" option, the annoying "feature" that the "Favorites Tree" can only be displayed fully expanded, so you can't quickly select a category where you've grouped similar links, still applies. You have to scroll all the way down, one favorite at a time, to get to where you want to put the new one. That "improvement" appeared three or four generations back in IE versions.

Another similar "relocation" that lots of people don't notice immediately is that the "show desktop" button that previously you could choose to show or not show at the lower left of the Windows desktop is now fixed at the extreme right of the bottom Windows bar.

Instead of the quite sensible "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Microsoft appears to have adopted the mantra popular for decades in aircraft shops - "If it ain't broke, I haven't worked on it yet."

Most of the shop people who wore the latter slogan on caps (and sometimes on T-shirts) understood quite well that the it can have two distinct and opposite meanings. It always seemed that managers, as a group, were incredibly slow at understanding that; and Microsoft quite obviously is "all managers" now. (or actually, the new mantra there is "it's all about sales, who cares if it works.")

John