Close / hide a gadget from your Windows 7 desktop (without uninstalling)
One of the nice features with desktop gadgets in Windows 7 (which was also the case in Windows Vista) is that you have a "Gadget Gallery" that stores all gadgets installed on your computer; this gives you the ability to close, or hide, a gadget from your desktop without having to actually uninstall it. Likewise, the Gadget Gallery can be used to drag and drop multiple instances of a gadget; think of the Gadget Gallery as a store, from where you can buy (for free) and return as many gadgets as you want! In this tutorial, we will explain how to remove gadgets from your desktop, without uninstalling them - if needed, you can uninstall a gadget and permanently delete from your PC.
Close a gadget / hide it from your Windows 7 desktop
Follow these steps to temporarily remove a gadget from the desktop:
- First, minimize all open windows to see the gadget you want to hide.
- Once you have located the gadget in question, move your mouse above it: (we are using the Windows 7 clock gadget as example for this tutorial, but this works the same way for all gadgets)
- Notice from the screenshot above that when you move your mouse above a desktop gadget, it will display its own mini toolbar, which contains several buttons: a drag handle at the bottom, to move the gadget, a gear button to customize its settings (when available), and an "x", close button at the top.
Warning: it is very easy to close a gadget to hide it from your desktop, and Windows 7 will not ask you confirmation before doing so once you have clicked to close. But keep in mind that the settings and options you have configured for this particular instance of the gadget you are closing will be gone. In other words, you can add the gadget back to your desktop later on, but it will no longer have anything but its default settings!
Now that you have been warned, just click on the "x" to close the gadget and temporarily remove it from your desktop. As soon as you do, Windows hides that gadget.- This is literally all it takes to hide a gadget from your desktop in Windows 7! If you decide to add this gadget back to your desktop later on, just type "Gadget Gallery" in the start menu, and drag it back to your desktop (with its default settings).