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After reading the last article about adding gadgets to Windows 7, you’re probably wondering “How do I get new gadgets and how do you install them?”.
There are a few different places and ways to acquire gadgets, but your best bet is the official Microsoft site. Here is a quick and easy How-To on where to get Windows 7 gadgets, and also how to install Windows 7 gadgets.
How to Install New Gadgets in Windows 7 [groovyVideo]
[flv:http://assets.groovypost.com/vid/2009/install-gadget-win7.mp4 640 480]
How to Install new gadgets in Windows 7 [Step-by-Step]
1. Following the instructions from the previous article will bring you to the Gadgets window. At the bottom right of the Gadgets window you will see a clickable link. Click the Get more gadgets online link.
2. The link will take you to the Microsoft site which will display all of their Official gadgets. You’ll notice that there aren’t too many listed here, for more, go ahead and Click the Get more desktop gadgets… link.
3. Your browser should have opened to the Live Gallery site. From here you can select which gadgets you would like to install. When you have found one you like just Click the Download button below the gadget. For this example we’ll use the Speed Test gadget.
direct url: http://gallery.live.com/results.aspx?c=0&bt=1&pl=1
Note: You may notice the filter path still says Windows Vista, but most of these gadgets will work for Windows 7.
4. After clicking Download you’ll be prompted with a warning if the gadget was not made directly by Microsoft. This will happen nearly every time since Microsoft has actually made very few of the gadgets available in the gallery. Click Install to continue.
5. Next the File Download will pop up, for gadgets I prefer to just Click Open. The installation file is not needed later, so storing it in temporary memory makes cleanup easy. Once downloaded Click Install on the Desktop Gadgets window that appears.
All done! Now if you go back to your Gadgets window you’ll see the gadget you just installed appear on the page.
Have fun testing out and using the groovy gadgets available for Windows 7!
Questions, Comments? Feel free to “Ask MrGroove,” or Join us in our Free Technical Support Community Forum!
I liked how at the end of the video he showed how to uninstall the windows 7 gadgets. Microsoft did a waaaaay better job with this with 7 than they did for Vista.
Nice article! I found some good gadgets at http://www.uniquewg.com. The music player is great.
i hope you can help….
when i right click on the desktop then open gadgets i receive a window that windows cannot find sidebar.exe. i have looked searched but nothing.
cisco
Take a look in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe
That is the location of the 32-bit sidebar, assuming you are running 64-bit of course…
If you want to find the 64-bit version, or if you are running a 32-bit operating system the location would be nearly the same, except without the (x86). i.e.
C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe
If it’s not there, then there may be something wrong with your operating system.
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when i click the download in microsoft page, my IDM download the gadget butis is not an *.*gadget file, it is a zip file!
then i cant instal them!
what should i do?
thanks