How to keep Google Desktop gadgets without the search?

March 28, 2009 3:54 PM

Is there a way to keep Google Desktop without it hijacking Vista's search?

I installed Google Desktop on my Vista Home Ultimate PC. I want to keep it installed because I like the gadgets.

However, I really don't like the way it hijacks the windows search (which I much prefer to the Google Desktop Search).

Could anyone suggest a way to keep the gadgets but ditch the Google desktop search - Google helpfully doesn't provide an option...

posted by inbetweener to technology (4 answers total)

In what way is it highjacking Windows search? I don't think there's a central way to turn off indexing, but you can disable most of the external signs of it, depending on what's bugging you.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:05 PM on March 28, 2009

If I remember correctly (my husband had this problem too) you can delete the Google Search application and keep just the gadgets.

Try going to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs and scroll down until you find the Google entries. There should be separate entries for Google Search and Google Gadgets. You should be able to safely remove the search feature without compromising your desktop gadgets.
posted by amyms at 5:22 PM on March 28, 2009

I just uninstalled Google Desktop totally yesterday, but the first page of the uninstaller has these options:

1) Remove search only; keep sidebar

2) Remove sidebar only; keep search

3) Remove both

(I think there was one more too, but I can't imagine what it could have been.)
posted by mxc at 3:26 PM on March 29, 2009

Sadly none of these options seem to work, you can uninstall bits of Google Desktop but there is no option to just remove the search.

@Rhaomi - what I meant is that the Windows search box in the start menu and the default search option within Windows is diverted to Google desktop search automatically. I find this to be inferior to the desktop search baked into Vista and would like that back, whilst keeping all my Google gadgets that are part of the Google desktop install.

Annoyingly, this does not seem to be an option.
posted by inbetweener at 3:25 PM on May 6, 2009