Tip 1101: Change the Search Provider in Office 2013

An Outlook 2013 user wanted to change the Search provider that is used when you right click on text in Outlook:

In Outlook 2013, I can right click on a word and a menu pops up and I am able to "Search with Bing". I know Bing belongs to Microsoft but I don't like using it. Is there any way I can change this search engine to Google instead??

You sure can, all it takes is two keys to the registry to change the search capability in Word 2013 as well as Outlook. You can use any search engine you prefer.

If you aren't sure what URL to use for your favorite search engine, look at the URL in the address bar after doing a search. Strip away extra junk in the URL, leaving the base url and the query string (often ?q=).

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\General
String: SearchProviderName
Value: Friendly name
String: SearchProviderURI
Value: Search Url to use (up to 253 characters)