One of the very few policy-based adjustments to IE7 that I need to make prior
to rolling it out in my company is restricting the list of search engines and
preventing the addition of untested or marketing-based search sites to the
users' lists.

I was having a devil of a time with KB article 918238, which provides a
sample search provider policy but was very hard to follow, has at least one
misspelling and was not working for me at all.  After studying some of the
working ADM files in Windows Server 2003 and the Microsoft paper entitled
"Using Administrative Template Files with Registry-Based Group Policy" I
wrote the following ADM file which uses somewhat friendlier checkboxes
instead of the "invisible" policy from that KB article.

There are choices for Live Search, Yahoo, Ask.com and Google, which are the
four choices I will provide on my network.  Use it in your Group Policy
Editor instead of the one from the KB article.  You need to also enable one
of the other two Search Provider policies in order for this one to take
effect.  (See explanations in Group Policy Editor.)  it is set up for User
Policy Administrative Templates only -- not Computer Policy.

You can edit the policy file and add additional registry keys for other
providers as directed in the KB article, but using the PART...END PART blocks
as a template.  Hope this is useful to those who need this functionality in
policy.  All the usual disclaimers apply, i.e. use the file AS-IS at your own
risk, etc.  It's working fine for me -- Windows Server 2003 with Windows
XP-SP2 workstations.

;================================
CLASS USER
CATEGORY !!WindowsComponents
CATEGORY !!InternetExplorer

POLICY "Select search providers to be included in policy-based search list"
    #if version >= 4
    SUPPORTED !!SUPPORTED_IE7
    #endif
    EXPLAIN !!Search_Explain
    KEYNAME "Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes"
    PART "Live Search" CHECKBOX
    VALUENAME LiveChoice
        ACTIONLISTON
        KEYNAME "Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\SearchScopes\{0633EE93-D776-472f-A0FF-E1416B8B2E3A}"
        VALUENAME DisplayName        VALUE "@ieframe.dll,-12512"
        VALUENAME URL            VALUE
"http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q={searchTerms}&src={referrer:source?}"
        END ACTIONLISTON
    END PART
    PART "Google" CHECKBOX
    VALUENAME GoogleChoice
        ACTIONLISTON
        KEYNAME "Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\SearchScopes\{C4CB4A26-C3A7-43D9-B587-A3A089E39EFE}"
        VALUENAME DisplayName    VALUE "Google"
        VALUENAME URL        VALUE
"http://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms}&rls=com.microsoft:{language}&ie={in
putEncoding}&oe={outputEncoding}&startIndex={startIndex?}&startPage={startPage}"
        END ACTIONLISTON
    END PART
    PART "Yahoo" CHECKBOX
    VALUENAME YahooChoice
        ACTIONLISTON
        KEYNAME "Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\SearchScopes\{5A0025DA-7BEA-4F98-B987-298BCF7A396C}"
        VALUENAME DisplayName    VALUE "Yahoo! Search"
        VALUENAME URL        VALUE
"http://search.yahoo.com/search?p={searchTerms}&ei=utf-8&fr=b2ie7"
        END ACTIONLISTON
    END PART
    PART "Ask.com" CHECKBOX
    VALUENAME AskChoice
        ACTIONLISTON
        KEYNAME "Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\SearchScopes\{FB7569CA-999B-4C43-A9EE-F85AC0982157}"
        VALUENAME DisplayName    VALUE "Ask.com"
        VALUENAME URL        VALUE
"http://www.ask.com/web?q={searchTerms}&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir"
        END ACTIONLISTON
    END PART
END POLICY

END CATEGORY
END CATEGORY

[strings]
SUPPORTED_IE7="At least Internet Explorer 7.0"
WindowsComponents="Windows Components"
InternetExplorer="Internet Explorer"
PopulateSearchProviderList="Test populate list policy"
Search_Explain="Adds registry entries to
HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes for specific
search providers.  Check or clear the checkbox next to each search
provider.\n\n If you enable this policy setting and if the "Restrict search
providers to a specific list of providers" Group Policy setting is enabled,
the checked entries will be the only ones that appear in the Internet
Explorer drop-down list. If the "Add a specific list of search providers to
the user's search provider list" Group Policy setting is enabled, the checked
entries will be added to the user's list of search providers.\n\n If you
disable this policy setting or do not configure it, search will be governed
by the other relevant policies in this category.  See the other policies
mentioned here for additional information."
Test_Explain="Test explanation."
DateFormat="DateFormatText"
;================================