Change Outlook 2010 from using Bing Map to Google Maps
We all use online mapping to get an overview of how long a trip should take, where the company is located, what is nearby etc. Outlook 2010 has made it very simple to look up an address and map it right from within Outlook itself.
Those of us that use Outlook 2010 will have seen a button called Map It which is located next to a contact’s Address. It looks like this:
For those people who actually clicked on this, you would have noticed that Outlook takes the contact’s Address and displays it on Microsoft’s BING maps This by itself is pretty cool tip.
But wait, there is more:
What if you don’t want to use Microsoft’s Bing for your maps ?
Perhaps you are fond of using Google’s maps instead so here is the “how you can tell Outlook to no longer use Bing but rather show the addresses from this point onwards in Google Maps” tip !
Disclaimer: This tip involves the Registry so please make a backup of the registry first before you make ANY changes to it. I take no responsibility.
Don’t worry the steps are pretty simple and straight forward ! (but you have to have the no responsibility disclaimer anyways…)
Lets get started:
1. Make a backup of the registry (did you not read the above disclaimer ?)
2. Close Outlook 2010
3. Open NOTEPAD (you can just type NOTEPAD into the start/ search)
4. Copy these lines:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice14.0OutlookOptionsGeneral] “MapScriptURL”=”http://maps.google.com/?q=<0s>, <1s>, <2s>, <3s>, <4s>”
it should look like this:
5. You will now need to save it. Click on File, SAVE AS… and then you will be prompted where to save this file. Choose a place like My Documents or Desktop.
You will need to give this file a name. Type: Outlook-Google-Map.reg
Note: it HAS to be a .REG file so under the file name, change the Save as type to All Files (*.*)
It should look something like this:
Click on SAVE
6. close NOTEPAD
7. Double-Click on the file that you have just created
8. You will be prompted with the Security Alert, click on YES (if you are prompted again confirming you are about to make changes , click on YES again)
9. You will get a confirmation that it has been added to the registry.
You are now done ! simply open Outlook again, find a contact and click on the Map It button – it will take you to Google Maps.
Before: |
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After:
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If you ever want o change back to using the BING mapping, here is what you do:
1. Make a backup of the registry (did you not read the above disclaimer ?)
2. Close Outlook 2010
3. Open NOTEPAD (you can just type NOTEPAD into the start/ search)
4. Copy these lines:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice14.0OutlookOptionsGeneral] "MapScriptURL"="http://www.bing.com/maps/?where1=<0s>, <1s>, <2s>, <3s>, <4s>"
5. You will now need to save it. Click on File, SAVE AS… and then you will be prompted where to save this file. Choose a place like My Documents or Desktop.
You will need to give this file a name. Type: Outlook-BING-Map.reg
click on SAVE
6. close NOTEPAD
7. Double-click on the file
8. Click YES to the security prompts
Ta-da ! All back to normal again…
Its been a little while since I wrote a nice juicy Outlook tip 
Great tip with excellent detail! Thanks!
How about a +1 (Google+) tag on your site? I would have chosen that for this tip if it had been available.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the feedback !
As soon as this blogging software puts the Google+ I will add it too…
this is very heart
Great tip, thanks.
Thanks a lot; No bing anymore :-)))
Cool – does anybody know how to do this in outlook for mac?