Comments on: Using Bing Search Preferences, Helpful Search Tips

By: James Creed

James Creed — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:30:51 +0000

Hey Mike,
I’m having trouble with my safe search preferances.
I’m trying to change them to where i can set them to Moderate or Strict, permanately. Is there a way i can do this?
Please respond

By: Jeffrey L. Culbert

Jeffrey L. Culbert — Fri, 06 May 2011 11:44:14 +0000

Perhaps someone can help me with my little problem…. I live 30 miles south of Tulsa, OK and set my Bing preferences to Tulsa. However, Bing keeps changing my city preference to Forth Worth, TX. Every time I log on, I have to go in and change my “saved” settings. I can understand maybe the safe search always resetting to moderate, but not the city where I live. Any suggestions ????? Thanks

By: Mike McEvoy

Mike McEvoy — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:14:24 +0000

Hi Lisa,
Thanks for stopping by. There is a way to clear the addresses in the HOME and OTHER drop down boxes. Part way down the column on the right hand side, below the “Get Directions” and “Clear” buttons there is a link labeled “Setting”.

If you click on that link you will see a checkbox titled “Save your destination history” By unchecking this box you will clear the entries in the two drop down boxes. Try it and let me know if that works for you.
–Mike

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 16:21:35 +0000

I use bingmaps almost every day as I travel for work. I am frustrated with one little thing that is driving me nuts… At some point in time I set two addresses in the search drop-down boxes – one for HOME and one for OTHER… I’ve now moved and my office has also moved and I really want to CHANGE the addresses labeled HOME and OTHER in the drop down boxes when searching directions…

HOW DO I DO THIS? I’ve spent way too much time trying to refigure this…

By: Mike McEvoy

Mike McEvoy — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 02:47:47 +0000

Hi Rob, Thanks for stopping by. I don’t think you are missing anything. It appears that setting the number of search results in Preferences only effects the display of Web searches. I got the same results you did in with Images Searches. I also received a large number of results with Video Searches and the Preferences setting had no impact on Video searching either.

Not sure why MS would not have made this setting more universal across all type of searches. One partial workaround for Images would be to select the smallest image size — the square with 9 little squares inside – and that may shorten the download time. Thanks for raising this point. Wishi I had a better answer. I learn something new every day. I’ll have to update the blog post.
–Mike

By: Rob Adams

Rob Adams — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:18:19 +0000

Hello Mike,

I’m having a problem with Bing’s preferences. My image search is just an endless scroll of images which takes considerable time to download. I thought by setting my results default to 10 that it would solve the problem but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Can you tell me why this might be the case? Am I missing something perhaps?

Rob

By: Bruce

Bruce — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:23:13 +0000

Hello Mike!

Hey, that suggestion of yours WORKED! However, I did need to go back and add BING as one of ‘Favorites’. Previously, I had it set as my ‘Home Page’ and that didn’t work. Sooooo… Just set Bing as a favorite and then set and save your preferences and they will be preserved!

Bruce

By: Mike McEvoy

Mike McEvoy — Mon, 03 May 2010 05:10:14 +0000

Hi @Norman, Thanks for stopping by the Tech Tips blog. What you are running into I believe is that fact that many search engines store their settings as a cookie and not in any type of a configuration file. So if you dump your browser cookies after each browsing session you will need to reset your search engine setting during your next browsing session.

However, most browsers do allow you to save certain cookies for certain web sites even if you clear out all your other cookies. For instance with Internet Explorer 8 if select Delete Browsing History, on the next screen you can also select the check box to Preserve Favorite Website Data. Check that out and see if it resolves your problem.

One caveat: if you are searching in InPrivate mode no cookies will be saved regardless of the History settings.

Don’t hold me to this as etched in stone. Microsoft, Firefox, Google and the other browser creators continue to evolve their products. But as of this point in time and to the best of my knowledge the settings are saved as cookies. Let me know if this solves your issue.

By: Norman

Norman — Mon, 03 May 2010 01:44:23 +0000

When I set prefferences I EXPECT them to be REMEMBERED. I am sick & tired of trying to keep suggested sites turned off. I don’t need anyone suggesting what sites I should be looking at. It is causing me so much hassel that I considering switching to Firefox/Google or any other browser/search engine that allows me to set my prefferences & remember them.

By all means set safe/standard defaults for those that are happy to be helped in this way but allow those who know what they are doing have the freedom to choose.

By: Sherry

Sherry — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:23:57 +0000

This is all good, except, after you exit your browser, then open again, nothing is saved, it all goes back to default, How do I get it to save and stay saved?

By: JohnL

JohnL — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:33:00 +0000

This article was very helpful. I find I’m using Bing a little more each day but wasn’t aware of the being able to set the Search Prferences until I read this. Very useful and very clear. Thanks for the info; great post.