A very important article published by Microsoft highlighted a possible problem on Windows 7 and Vista operating systems related to gadgets and the sidebar. Gadgets are those interactive panels that can be placed on the desktop to always have information at a glance, for example, the weather, the time or with some handy controls such as volume.
Most gadgets are simple HTML desktop applications that extract data from the web.
They can be easily added by right clicking on the desktop.
It is now known, however, that Microsoft has, on the one hand eliminated this functionality in Windows 8 (where there are the Metro panels) and on the other hand made the gallery of additional gadgets to be installed disappear (as written in a previous article on the best gadgets for Windows 7)
Since the official gallery no longer exists, Microsoft has released a press release where it is strongly discouraged to install gadgets downloaded from non-certified sources because they may be the cause of a computer security problem .
They can damage your pc and leave a door open for hackers to access files, spy on activities and change settings at any time.
To avoid any problems, Microsoft went further and released a Fix-it that completely disables gadgets in Windows 7 and the sidebar in Windows Vista .
The Fix it is completely automatic, just download it, start it, wait a few seconds and close it again.
It does nothing but disable the service in Windows that allows the addition and installation of gadgets on the desktop or on the Vista sidebar.
A system restore point is also created so if something doesn't work properly, you can always go back.
On the Fix it page, there are two, the first on the left disables gadgets, the second re-enables them.
My advice, at this point, is to disable this feature forever and forget about it, even if it has never been used.
Without Fix It, you can disable Windows 7 gadgets and the Vista sidebar with a manual procedure by editing the group policies or the registry.
Using Group Policy (not available on all systems), you must:
- Go to Start and write in the search box or Run gpedit.msc and press Enter
- Navigate to the Local Computer Policy Tree -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Sidebar or Desktop Gadget .
- On the left side, right click on disable Desktop Gadget and activate it.
- Restart your PC to apply the changes.
To disable the sidebar in the registry:
- Type regedit and press the Enter key in the search box or Run from the Start menu.
- Go to HKLM / Software / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Policies
- Press the right mouse button on the policies, select New -> Key and write Windows as the name
- Right click on the new Windows key, do New -> Key again giving the name Sidebar .
- Right click on Sidebar, select New -> DWORD (32-bit) value with name TurnOffSidebar and with value 1.
