The language support includes French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and, for the first time, Hindi. The new version of Google Desktop, an application for Windows Vista, XP, or 2000, can search a user's local hard drive or the Web from a single toolbar. The app can find Web pages, e-mail, or local documents.

Google Desktop 5, which installs as a fixed or floating sidebar, also has new "gadgets." These are small applications that provide news summaries, weather updates, to-do lists, job listings, photo slideshows, and more.

Earlier this month, an English-only Mac OS X version of Google Desktop was released.

Previews, Warnings

The latest update to Google Desktop, according to a blog posting by Kevin Tom of the Google Desktop team, includes "previews for search results and warnings for suspicious Web sites, whether you're clicking on links from documents, IMs, Web sites, and more." In February, security researchers had noted that Google Desktop itself had some vulnerabilities, for which the company has released patches.

Tom wrote that Google Desktop now makes it "easier than ever for people around the world to find content on their computer as well as on the Web."

Matt Brown, an analyst for industry research firm Forrester, said the new Desktop updates were "incremental." For businesses, he said he didn't see "a lot of applications" that were relevant or compelling, and also noted there were some issues with Google Desktop that I.T. departments would have to address.

Search from Google Desktop, he said, "can hang up computers on startup and shutdown and cause issues for an Exchange environment." He also noted that there sometimes is a "Monday morning effect" when indexing can mean that shared resources are burdened as multiple users log on after the weekend.

Another issue for enterprises, he said, is whether a deleted document actually gets deleted from the Google index.

Microsoft 's Desktop Search

Brown said that Microsoft is dealing with these kinds of enterprise concerns too, but explained that because Microsoft's desktop search is integrated into the new Vista operating system , there are potentially fewer issues. Microsoft also offers desktop search functionality for Windows XP as a free download.

"Google still has a lot of work to do to build credibility with enterprises," he noted.

On another front in Google's effort to personalize desktops, the company reported that on Friday it had fixed an apparent glitch in Personalized Home Page settings and preferences following reports that some users had difficulties in getting their settings loaded.

Similar in some ways to Google Desktop, Google's Personalized Home Page lets users set the Google home page as a custom portal, with gadgets, selected news feeds, and other customized components.