News Why You Should Use Desktop Gadgets Instead of Widgets in Windows 11 or 10

[Admin]

First introduced in Vista, Desktop Gadgets stay on the desktop at all times, unlike widgets which hide behind a click. Here’s how to use them and why.

Why You Should Use Desktop Gadgets Instead of Widgets in Windows 11 or 10 : Read more

 

[Friesiansam]

Why You Should Use Desktop Gadgets Instead of Widgets in Windows 11 or 10

Why should I use either?

 

[TheUberGeek]

I still use Desktop Gadgets in Win11, some are my own creation.

A little history: Desktop Gadgets were actually created by Konfabulator (later Yahoo! Widget Engine). I paid for it back in 2004ish before Yahoo acquired them and/or Microsoft made them free.

My favorite Gadget is Clipboarder that keeps a history of 50 clipboard entries that I can scroll through and/or click to place back in the clipboard. This is super useful during programming where I have multiple copy/paste lines of code. I use MSN weather, CPU Usage and Clock, set to another time zone.

Note: Some of those old Desktop Gadgets stopped working in Win10-11 because of structure or driver access, or whatever, i.e. GPU Usage Gadget.

They are a MUST for me, so it would be nice to have them native in Win 11 or Win 12.

 

[drtweak]

Only one I ever used was Pandora. Why? Because even with a free account it never played ads haha it would shut off after too long on a free acount but nope never an add.

 

[bloodroses]

I tried 8GadgetPack in a VM and it felt too restrictive and outdated for my tastes.

Why not just use Rainmeter and get more flexibility and customization?

 

[digitalgriffin]

I miss the big clock and news tickers/stock trackers. The radio players were good too.

That said they were a security risk. Microsoft canned them for a reason.

 

[Jimichan]

Ever heard of Rainmeter?

 

[MiniITXEconomy]

I miss the big clock and news tickers/stock trackers. The radio players were good too.

That said they were a security risk. Microsoft canned them for a reason.

Yeah, the author's assertion that Gadgets should be fine because he hasn't noticed anything wrong with them doesn't instill a lot of confidence.

 

[Integr8d]

And yet the author also commented there were never any CVE’s issued about them. One could easily infer that MS just wanted to nix a popular feature and use a vague security statement as an excuse… “MS issued a security advisory in July 2012 that identified the Sidebar and Desktop Gadgets as prey to security vulnerabilities that could allow remote code execution.” One could easily replace Sidebar and Gadgets with ‘the entire OS’ and still have a true statement.

 

[compprob237]

Open the widgets bar once and you'll know why I immediately disabled it. Half of it is useless "My Feed" that you can't control. Give me a break.