Search, No Longer the Main Feature of Google Desktop
If you install the latest version of Google Desktop for Windows, you'll notice a new dialog that presents a list of features and lets you select the ones you want. Google Desktop enables by default the sidebar with gadgets, but the search feature is limited to filenames.
Context & Ripple Effects
Through 2007 Google rebuilt Google Desktop as a widget surface rather than an index: the March redesign centered the product on a sidebar of gadgets, October wired those gadgets into iGoogle, and June extended the whole thing cross-platform with a Linux build. Search, once the product's entire reason to exist, had been quietly repositioned as one component among many.
The January 2008 Windows update makes that repositioning explicit. A new first-run dialog asks users which features they want, ships with the gadget sidebar enabled by default, and limits search to filenames unless the user opts into more — a default-setting choice that tells you where Google thinks desktop attention now lives.
First-order effects
- New Google Desktop for Windows installs arrive with the gadget sidebar on and full-content search off, so users who want indexed file search must actively opt back in during setup.
Second-order effects
- Gadget developers gain a default-on distribution channel: every fresh Windows install carries the sidebar that October's iGoogle integration already treats as a shared gadget ecosystem.
Third-order effects
- If defaults hold, desktop search commoditizes into plumbing while the durable differentiator becomes the always-visible widget/assistant surface — the pattern later formalized as the iGoogle-meets-Desktop gadget pipeline.
The trend: Desktop search utilities are being converted into gadget platforms, with search demoted from headline feature to opt-in component.