Here are the steps:

1. Click on the down arrow on the sidebar’s title.
2. Go to Add/remove Panels.
3. Check the box that says “Show ActiveX plug-ins”
4. At the bottom, you will find Windows Media Player. Check it.
5. Click OK.

See screenshot below.

If you do it right, there’ll be a new panel on your Google Desktop sidebar.

To play any media files (music, movie, etc), click down arrow from the panel then choose option. Or click on the left arrow and click on the options button. A new dialog window will show up, and you can browse the media file you want to play. Click OK when done.

Kudos to Hernan Cosi for the original tutorial

[ Download Google Desktop Search ]

The latest Google Desktop offering includes several twists. Beyond providing search results, it monitors the user’s behavior and presents relevant information in a resizable and moveable vertical window called the Sidebar (look screenshot on the right)

One module aggregates e-mail messages from a variety of accounts, including Google’s Gmail service or the user’s Internet provider. Others display stock prices, personalized news headlines, weather reports and what’s popular on the Web. Another module pulls Really Simple Syndication feeds from Web sites that have been visited and offer that service. Unlike other feed aggregators, the user need not take any action for a feed to be added.

Nikhil Bhatla, Google Desktop’s product manager, said:

“For the novice, it’s very easy. They don’t even have to know what RSS feeds are. They’ll just start seeing them in the Sidebar. Advanced users can go in and customize to their hearts’ delight.”

A photo module displays pictures from the local PC. It also pulls pictures from Web-based galleries that have been visited. Some features, including personalized news, involve sending details of its users surfing habits back to Google. Bhatla said no personally identifying data is transmitted, and users can opt out.

The program has several tools for finding information buried on local and network drives as well as the Internet. The Sidebar has its own search box and it adds a new toolbar to Microsoft’s Outlook e-mail program for quick access to mail messages. After the initial indexing of all content on a drive â€â€? a process that takes place when the PC is not being used, subsequent indexing takes place in real time. That means a file can be found as soon as it’s been saved to the disk.

The Sidebar’s search box also finds applications, which can be launched directly from the results list that appears as words are typed in. It’s similar to the Spotlight feature of Apple Computer Inc.’s Mac OS X and the built-in search of Microsoft Windows Vista, which is expected to be released next year.

Google, which has come under fire for making private information a bit too easy to find (remember Google Web Accelerator problem?), said it has now disabled the caching of secure Web sites � an option that can be enabled if the user desires. It also recommends against using the desktop program tool on computers in Internet cafes or in cases where many people share the same operating system account. Google Desktop 2 also offers the ability to encrypt � or scramble � the index to protect it from being read by unauthorized parties.

[ Download Google Desktop ] [ Original Source ]