Add gadgets to the desktop in Windows 7
By default, no gadget is added to the desktop in Windows 7: but your computer will come with at least 8 built-in gadgets, including the Calendar, Clock, CPU Meter, Currency [converter], Feed Headlines (a gadget to read "RSS" feeds), Picture Puzzle, Slide Show, Weather, and (if your Windows 7 edition supports it), a Windows Media Center gadget. PC manufacturers also sometimes include desktop gadgets relevant to their company or the hardware used in your computer (like a video card).
In this tutorial, we will show you how to add any of these gadgets to your desktop; the next tutorial will explain how to download and install new gadgets on in Windows 7.
Add a gadget to the desktop in Windows 7
To add to your desktop any of the built-in Windows 7 gadgets, follow these simple steps:
- Click on the start menu, and type "add gadget"
- Windows 7 displays a "Add gadgets to the desktop" link as first result: click on it.
- The "Gadget Gallery" program will open: this is the application you need to launch to add new gadgets to your desktop. The Gadget Gallery includes a listing of all the gadgets currently installed on your computer - whether they have been added on the desktop or not:
- Another way to open the Gadget Gallery is to right-click on an empty area of your desktop (between icons), and choose "Gadgets" from the context menu.
To add one of these gadgets to your desktop, simply drag the gadget icon, and drop it outside the Gadget Gallery window. (This will not remove the gadget from the Gallery!)- Notice the navigation arrows in the top left corner of the Gadget Gallery window: once you have installed more than {x} gadgets, the rest of them will be listed in the next screen(s).
- Once you have added all the gadgets you wanted on your desktop, just close the Gadget Gallery to return to Windows. And you are done! This is all it takes to add gadgets to your desktop; if you do not see the gadget you just added, please see how you can easily hide gadgets or show gadgets on the desktop in Windows 7.
Tip: you can drag a gadget to your desktop as many times as you like. Windows 7 will create a new "instance" of the gadget each time; this can be useful with the clock gadget, for example, to show as may time zones on your desktop as you want.
Desktop gadgets settings are not persistent!
Unlike regular programs, gadgets do not remember your settings. Before you remove a gadget from your desktop by clicking its Close button, keep in mind that the gadget will not retain the options you configured, for the next time you add this particular gadget on your desktop.
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