Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.
It took me a while to find this tip, so here's how to get Google Desktop to index XML files:
I think by default GDS has XML file indexing TURNED OFF in the registry - it won't index them at all. This key is in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Desktop\file_extensions_to_skip. You'll have to remove "xml" from that list (I think)
(source: http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Desktop_past-discussions/browse_thread/thread/6059c564cf1bf007/4cb1bf32429413bb)
The 'xml' extension was in this list, and I removed it. Now I wait until the reindex is complete and try some queries. Update to follow.
<update 2006-12-29>
The reindex has taken place, and there are plenty of XML files in the index now. I can find them by simply searching for *.xml, but I still can't search the contents of an XML file in Google Desktop Search. Not such a surprise, since Google Desktop Search's help indicates it does not support XML files (http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12634&topic=201).
Before I get too far into what I'm trying next, let me explain my need. We use XML to send and receive shipment details with a business partner. From time to time, I need to be able to quickly locate a specific shipment in the hundreds of XML files stored in the archive. I'm positive I'm not the only person in this situation.
I found a plug-in at http://www.trivex.net/ which will have GDS treat XML as plain text, and that should hopefully improve the search. Apparently Copernic can be set to do this from its control panel, and that's the next stop. A plain text search is good enough, but ideally, either GDS or Copernic would support an XQuery for a specific element or attribute value.
So I've installed Larry's Any Text plug in (http://www.trivex.net/). That was darn easy. I had to add the XML extension to the config file furing installation, and the plug-in has triggered a reindex. I'll let you know how this one works out.
The index updated over lunch, and Larry's plug-in did the trick. I can pull up the XML files I need simply by order number or some other identifier. It's great. Too bad it's not an XQuery or something similar, but it'll work. Keep in mind that GDS does not support wildcards, so you have to enter the entire string you're looking for, not a partial order number. Fortunately, element and attribute values are percieved as whole words.
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