Question: I'm on Windows. 

A couple years ago when I switched from Outlook to Gmail (Google Apps), Google provided this awesome little standalone gmail client that was just a single-purpose Chrome install. It launched like a normal application, stayed updated when I updated Chrome. It was Chrome in a separate application that launched only gmail, stayed logged in really well, and "felt" like a gmail mail client, with the gmail interface. It had it's own little red envelope icon, it was a windows app. (I remember there was no Mac equivalent.)

I found it while looking through the "this is how you get your company to switch to gmail" documentation that Google provided. 

I just repaved my box and now I'm looking for this thing again, and I had no idea it would be impossible to find. I've spent literally 2 hours looking, searching, googling, etc. I'm losing my mind. 

Anyone know how I can get my hands on this? I used it all day every day for 2 years, so I know it exists :), but I can not find it. Any assistance would be gratefully received.

Answer: 
You can go to <http://dl.google.com/tag/s/ap=yourdomain.com/googlewebapps/en/googleappsstandalonesetuptagged.exe> to download the tools.

If you're a Google Apps for Business user, you should replace `example.com` in the above URL with your domain name.

This will download the Google Apps installer which will create 3 new stand-alone applications:

* Google Calendar
* Google Docs
* Google Mail

These applications behave exactly as you described in your question.
Sounds a lot [like gmail notifier](http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_windows.html) , Its currently EOLed (Not updated since 06) but it runs a small standalone system tray entry that tells you if you got mail, and lets you check mail senders, titles and snippets of the e mail.