GOOGLE DESKTOP FAILS TO INDEX OUTLOOK 2000 EMAILS
ABOUT THIS WEB PAGE: Searching one's computer by keyword for old files and emails is a great feature. Google has great functionality with the Google Desktop Search program. Unfortunately, when Google updated the Desktop Search program on January 1, 2008 to revision 5.7, Outlook 2000 .pst files [at least those saved a location other than C:/Documents and Settings/...] quit indexing. We posted the rollback fix a year ago. Unfortunately it is not well indexed [by Google] and therefore doesn't help others. So here it is again. We hope you enjoy our information and do not mind the absence of advertisement, fancy graphics , and robust hyper-linking. External links are certainly welcome. And you may
Back in early 2009 a posting was placed on Google’s Desktop Search Blog. It never got indexed for easy retrieval. The fix lasted about 9 months and then Google Desktop automatically updated to revision 5.9.911.3589. As soon as the update occurred, Google Desktop stopped indexing Outlook 2000 emails. The fix was to reinstall Google Desktop 5.6.711.24354 using the following process:
1] Uninstall Google Desktop using windows add-remove programs from control panel. Reboot.
2] Erase all files from c:\documents and settings\user\local settings\application data\google\google desktop
3] Execute GoogleDesktopSetup.exe of revision 5.6.711.24354 available at
http://www.filehippo.com/download_google_desktop/tech/ [right part of webpage]4] Do NOT install Google gadgets. Installing the gadgets seems to put in place automatic updating service and your new 5.6.711.24354 installation will get updated to 5.9.911.3589 in 24 hours.
5] As an added measure of prevention disable the Google update service from your windows firewall.
6] Re-index
For your reference the original post is reproduced immediately below.
Spring 2010 Update. Google Desktop stopped indexing email again in December 2009. A quick check of the revision code on GoogleDesktop.exe disclosed that somehow the program had updated itself to revision 5.9.911.3589. This update occurred despite the fact that GoogleDesktopUpdate.exe is blocked by the system's firewall. Apparently, Google is able to run other code to accomplish the update. So steps 1- 6 above were repeated. This time as added protection against Google Desktop updating itself, the security permissions on folder C:\Program Files\Google\Google Desktop Search were changed. Ordinary and Power Users and System are disallowed from writing or modifying the code. Email has been successfully indexing for 3 months now.
We also notice that Bing and Yahoo Search have indexed this page. Google Search has not.
http://www.filehippo.com/download_google_desktop/tech/From: djonce
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:12:33 -0800 (PST)
Local: Tues, Jan 27 2009 8:12 am
Subject: Re: Stopped Indexing Outlook
I experienced a similar problem on my laptop running XP with Outlook
2000 [with .pst files in non standard locations] and a version of
Google Desktop 5.7.XXX. The most recently indexed email was dated
July, 2008. I tried all the things listed in these forums and in the
Google Help pages and whatever else I could find on the web. I must
have uninstalled and installed a half dozen times.Then I noticed that my desktop running XP with Outlook 2000 had an
earlier version of Google Desktop and was still indexing. So I
decided to see what revision of Google Desktop would still index my
Outlook 2000 .pst files. I started working backwards in time through
the major revisions 5.8, 5.7, 5.6, etc. When I loaded version
5.6.711.24354 newly arriving Outlook 2000 email started indexing
again. Re-indexing cataloged the entire .pst file.In the process of this debugging, I loaded the newest version of
Google Desktop 5.8.XXX onto my desktop, and it too quit indexing
email. Next step is to put the desktop back on 5.6Version 5.6.711.24354 has the outlook search bar [com addin "Google
Desktop Outlook Toolbar"] and gave me the news snippet option if
you're into those gadgets -- I'm not, and they are turned off on my
system. I have no idea what features I'm missing by running 5.6 and
not 5.7 or 5.8, but they cannot be as important as not indexing
Outlook emails. So unless I get crashes or system hangs, I'll be
staying with 5.6 until Google migrates past functionality forward [and
lets us all know they've done so].You can download older versions of Google Desktop here: