I long time ago when I used IE, I had the address bar toolbar on my taskbar. I found it very helpful for getting to pages quickly. Eventually, I got rid of it because even in 1280 x 1024, it took up too much of my taskbar space, and there wasn't enough room left for a decent number of Windows.

Later, when I was using Firefox, I thought about using it again, but I changed my mind because I figured since it was Windows Explorer, it would simply load the links typed into there in IE, and not in my default browser.

Recently, I discovered that not only does the address bar load what's typed in it into the default browser, but it also can be dragged up to the top of the screen, along with any additional custom toolbars I want to make, so I made a second Taskbar at the top of my screen with a whole bunch of custom toolbars, as well as the address bar. Now I can type URLS whenever I want, and access any program on my computer in two clicks, regardless of what is currently on my screen.

A few problems though. It seems that even though the address bar loads in firefox, it seems to keep a few IEish characteristics. For example, if I type a search term, it will load up MSN search IN FIREFOX with whatever I type in. If I type about:something, it loads the link in IE. Any other something: things (I think they're called protocols?) seem to load with whatever they are set to load in in IE. If they do not exist in IE, I get a something: is not a registered protocol error.

So here's my two questions:

1. How do I change the default search engine in IE to google so I can enter google searches into this bar?
2. How do I change these "protocols"? Mailto: seems to load Thunderbird fine, but about: needs to be changed to Firefox, and a few others need to be created. Is there a way to do this? If nothing else, can it be done with the registry?

Well i don't follow it all but, to change to google search ,click on the search icon on the toolbar ,click customize .the auto search settings in the lower left of the screen ,you will see choose a search provider for auto search settings ,pick goole sites from the list .
If are in firefox go t otools and options and have a look around .You say About ,about what ! why would you creat a icon called about !!!

My apologies. Here, lemme show you a screenshot.

I did this by right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting toolbars > address bar. This made the address bar appear on my taskbar. I then dragged it to the top of my screen and it became a second taskbar on the top. From there, I made a bunch of folders with toolbars in them, and for each one, I right-clicked on the top taskbar and went to toolbars > new toolbar, and selected the appropriate folder to make it appear.

My problem is that even though this address bar loads in the default browser (which is strange, considering it shows an IE icon next to the URL), typing a search term into it opens Firefox in MSN search. When I said about:, I meant stuff like about:blank, or about:config (note the colon at the end of about). If I type these, they load in IE and not in Firefox. Firefox is already set to correctly open these protocols, but I'm not loading these in Firefox, I'm loading them in the taskbar, and windows has that adjusted for IE.

I need a way to make it load about: in Firefox, as well as a way to make it understand other protocols.

As for the search changing thing, I'll try that now and see if that fixes my problem.

Ah yes, I managed to change my search option in Internet Explorer to automatically search through google. As I suspected, this made URLs in the search bar open in google (before, they were loading in MSN search, even though Firefox was coming up and not IE). While I'm still pulling my hair out over the about: issue, this was, by far, the more annoying of the two issues. Thank you!