Here's our Windows 95/98 Tip for.. October 11, 1997
Click Here to see a complete list of all of our previously released Tips!
Change IE's Default Prefix
Out last IE tip talked about how to Run IE from RUN. In it we showed you that you could skip typing in http:// since IE automatically recognizes this as the default URL prefix and will add it in for you. How would you like to skip having to type in www. too? If you could do this, typing in a web site's URL could be reduced to nothing more than the domain (eg. microsoft.com). Well, you can do it and here's how:

Start the Registry Editor (Start, Run, REGEDIT)

Scroll down and find: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\URL\DefaultPrefix

Click on the DefaultPrefix, in the right pane you should see the (Default) key, which already says http://.

Double-click (Default) to edit the key, then change its Value Data to "http://www." (minus the quotes). Make sure you add the period after www.

That it, now whenever you want to manually enter a URL into IE's address bar or the Start button RUN box, you can skip typing in http://www.. Don't worry if you come across a non-standard URL, just go ahead and type the whole thing in manually like before.

- Thanks to Torrin Crowther for this one!