“Windows Desktop Gadgets has stopped working” – Windows 7 (x64)

Context:

Installing an unknown gadget caused the windows 7 gadget sidebar to stop working. It showed the “Windows Desktop Gadgets has stopped working” error.

After typing the word ‘gadgets’ in the main menu search bar and trying many of the options that came up…

- View list of running gadgets
- Uninstall a gadget
- Restore desktop gadgets installed with Windows
- etc

… frustration only mounted as the problem would just not go away. Finally after hours of trying various other things, a simple file tweak solved the problem.

In essence, the removal of a particular file ( or renaming it to backup ) and a re-start will cause the sidebar to reset.

Solution:

1. Ensure ‘sidebar.exe’ is closed ( via the task manager ).

2. Open windows explorer and enter ‘%localappdata%\microsoft\Windows Sidebar’ in the url bar.

3. Rename the ‘Settings.ini’ file to make room for automatic creation of new file.

4. Re-launch sidebar and viola !!
Alhumdulillah.

Advertisement