Better Performance in Google Desktop 5.8

Monday, September 15, 2008

Better Performance in Google Desktop 5.8

Google Desktop announces that the latest release focuses on performance and that's a great thing, considering that many users call Google Desktop a memory hog.

Google Desktop 5.8 improves the memory usage during startup, has a faster shutdown and detects the gadgets that slow down your computer. "To reduce memory usage, increase stability and reduce memory fragmentation, we reduced the number of different processes that Google Desktop runs, and we now recycle some of our processes frequently."

The blog post doesn't mention the biggest performance improvement: Google Desktop's main feature, indexing the files from your computer, is no longer enabled by default. In Windows Vista, Google uses the index created by Microsoft's desktop search service. If you want to enable Google Desktop's index, you need to select "Enable Enhanced Content Indexing" when you install the software or in the options page.

Enable additional features by using Google Desktop's index:

* Backup and view previous versions of your documents
* Search your web history, Gmail, and more
* View thumbnail previews of your images, videos, and web history

Google Desktop's wording makes you think that the "enhanced content indexing" is an advanced feature, when it should be the main feature of the software.

If you do enable desktop search, the initial indexing is much faster and the overall performance has been improved.

Labels: Google Desktop

13 comments ( Post a comment )

Luke said on September 15, 2008 4:58 PM PDT:

This might not be the best place to ask this question, but does Google Desktop's indexing service work even if I have the Vista index service turned off? Does Google Desktop's indexing service build on the Vista service or can it replace it?

If so, does anyone know whether Google Desktop's indexing service is faster/more efficient than the Vista indexing service?

iiooii said on September 15, 2008 5:08 PM PDT:

googles doesnt replace vista. it simple gets set as default search engine.

brad said on September 15, 2008 7:34 PM PDT:

I was hoping the next Google Desktop release would tie iGoogle and Google Desktop closer together to make it useful again.

Disappointing, feels like dying software.

Justin said on September 16, 2008 4:17 AM PDT:

I want x64 version!

Anonymous said on September 17, 2008 12:48 PM PDT:

I would like to have the possibility to index Outlook Attachments. Now I have to save them to my local files so they can be indexed.

Anonymous said on September 17, 2008 12:49 PM PDT:

Google Desktop searches the file names of all email attachments. The contents of an attachment will only be indexed if you save it to your computer.

operating system concepts said on September 29, 2008 6:42 AM PDT:

It would have been better if google desktop might look like my iGoogle homepage(Or atleast an option to make so). That would combine unlimited features to Google desktop. And why are some of the gadgets only trial...While google is promoting cloud computing?

roj said on November 3, 2008 12:02 PM PDT:

64-bit support by end of 2008, please.

sarimarton said on November 6, 2008 6:23 PM PDT:

We want x64 support. We want CHANGE.

Nancy LC said on November 9, 2008 9:20 AM PDT:

I am having slow startup performance with Google Desktop 5.8 installed.

Anonymous said on January 9, 2009 6:32 AM PDT:

I am also having startup performance with Google Desktop 5.8

SchenkOnline said on January 21, 2009 7:32 AM PDT:

Yes I want X64 support as well. Did anyone try the "GoogleDesktopSetup.exe /force" option yet? Google says "there are some limitations". I'm just curious to hear what these limitations are.

Seifer said on May 5, 2009 12:33 AM PDT:

I've tried the "/force" option in x64 Vista...
The limitation is the sidebar doesn't work 99.9% of the time.
In fact, I only had it work once.

The search still works though.. and that is awesome :)

What do you think?