Sidebar and Desktop Gadgets in Windows 7
Like Windows Vista before it, Windows 7 supports gadgets for your desktop: gadgets are mini programs that float on your desktop area or above other windows, and typically perform a single, limited task. In this series of free Windows 7 tutorials, we will explain how to add or remove gadgets from your desktop, how to install gadgets from the internet, and how to uninstall a gadget. You'll also learn about some of the more popular, free gadgets that ship with Windows 7 (like the Clock, Calendar, or Weather gadget), and popular third-party gadgets you can download like the iTunes gadget.
Windows 7 gadgets tutorials
Among the most common questions about gadgets in Windows 7 is the "Sidebar": all Windows Vista users are familiar with the bar docked on the side of the screen that allowed you to align and organize your gadgets neatly, and visible while other program windows were maximized.
Microsoft has not included a Sidebar in Windows 7, but a third-party developer has created a Sidebar for Windows 7, which actually contains more features than the original one, and works at its basic level just like the official Windows Vista Sidebar.
A couple of tutorials will teach you how to customize any gadget, both with the generic settings handled by Windows 7, and common to all gadgets, as well as the gadget's particular options (not all gadgets can be configured, like Microsoft's Calendar Gadget which runs only "as-is"), and how to determine if a particular gadget can be tweaked or not.
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