We're always looking for ways to give you search results faster. The popular
Desktop Search Shortcuts from
MSN Desktop Search are good examples of this. On a related note, Internet Explorer (5.0 and above) has a little known feature that lets you quickly search for something on any site: IE Search prefixes.
After the search prefixes are set up, you can type a single word identifier (prefix) and search query in the IE address bar to send the query to any website. For example, the prefix "msn" can go to MSN Search and typing "msn chicken fried rice" in the IE address bar sends the query "chicken fried rice" to our web search.
This script installs the search prefixes below to your machine. The "Alternate" column lists additional prefixes to launch the same query (e.g. "images corvette" and "image corvette" both do the same thing).
| Prefix | Alternate | Query Target | Example |
| define | definition, dictionary | MSN Search, web search with definition | define alpaca |
| encarta | | MSN Search, Encarta search | encarta history of china |
| images | image | MSN Search, image search | images corvette |
| kb | | Microsoft Knowledge Base | kb microsoft word |
| ms | | Microsoft.com site | ms windows xp |
| movies | movie | MSN Movies | movies the incredibles |
| msdn | | Microsoft MSDN | msdn cocreateguid |
| msn | | MSN Search, web search | msn chicken fried rice |
| music | | MSN Music | music peter gabriel |
| news | | MSN Search, news search | news iraq |
| shop | shopping | MSN Shopping | shop digital camera |
| quote | stockquote | MSN Money, stock quote | quote msft |
| syn | thesaurus | Encarta thesaurus | syn vanguard |
If you want to add prefixes for other websites, try the Microsoft Tweak UI utility for Windows XP. There are also a few shareware tools compatible with older versions of Windows. Enjoy!
Jamie Buckley
Program Manager, MSN Search
