As many of you may already know, upon installing Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the search link in the start menu is removed.  This makes getting to the advanced search box a little more difficult.  Why did Microsoft do this, you ask?  Well to make a long story short, they did it because google whined about it giving them an advantage in desktop search.  My take on it is that it is Microsoft’s OS and Google should drink a nice cup of STFU.  Anyway, I found this over at the forums on joejoe.org and refined it a bit to make it more practical to use.

The original script replaced the Run… link in the start menu with Search.  That’s all good and dandy but some people actually use the Run link (even though the search box can be used as a run dialog).  My version replaces the Help and Support link with our good friend search.  Let’s face it, if you’re even reading this the chances are slim that you actually use that entry in your start menu.  Below is the registry script, simply copy and paste it into notepad and save it as Search.reg and merge it into your registry.  You will have to restart the explorer.exe process after merging the reg file for the adjustment to take effect.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00; “Search” in start menu by replacing “Help and Support”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@=”Search”
“LocalizedString”=hex(2):40,00,25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,\
  6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,00,5c,00,65,00,78,00,70,00,6c,00,6f,00,72,00,65,00,72,\
  00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,2c,00,2d,00,37,00,30,00,32,00,30,00,00,00
“InfoTip”=”@explorer.exe,-7000″

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\DefaultIcon]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
  00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,69,00,6d,00,\
  61,00,67,00,65,00,72,00,65,00,73,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,2d,00,31,\
  00,37,00,37,00,00,00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\InProcServer32]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
  00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,73,00,68,00,\
  64,00,6f,00,63,00,76,00,77,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00
“ThreadingModel”=”Apartment”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance]
“CLSID”=”{3f454f0e-42ae-4d7c-8ea3-328250d6e272}”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance\InitPropertyBag]
“CLSID”=”{13709620-C279-11CE-A49E-444553540000}”
“command”=”@shell32.dll,-12708″
“method”=”FindFiles”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{2559a1f3-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\MayChangeDefaultMenu]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\ShellFolder]
“Attributes”=dword:00000000

; Enable or disable “Search” in Start menu from start menu and taskbar properties

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\StartMenu\StartPanel\ShowHelp]
“Type”=”checkbox”
“Text”=”Search”
“HKeyRoot”=dword:80000001
“RegPath”=”Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\Advanced”
“ValueName”=”Start_ShowHelp”
“CheckedValue”=dword:00000001
“UncheckedValue”=dword:00000000
“HelpID”=”windows.hlp#51142″
“DefaultValue”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\StartMenu\StartPanel\ShowHelp\Policy]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\StartMenu\StartPanel\ShowHelp\Policy\NoRun]
@=”"

; “Search” as context menu under the (My) Computer

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Search]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Search\command]
@=”explorer”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Search\ddeexec]
@=”[FindFolder(\”%l\”, %I)]”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Search\ddeexec\application]
@=”Folders”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Search\ddeexec\topic]
@=”AppProperties”