Sidebar disappeared

The Vista sidebar suddenly gone, along with all the gadgets. It doesn't show
up at startup, it refuses to start manually, it doesn't appear at the system
tray, it's not on the processes list. I was unable to delete settings.ini
located at Program Files\Windows Sidebar, neither by pressing delete, nor by
using Unlocker. I don't use System Restore (there are several reasons for
that). I've seen some people complaining about similar problem on some other
MS forums, but no one gave any useful advice.
Using Vista Home Premium x86, all updates installed.
Does anybody know what should I try? Thanks in advance.

Start | Search | Sidebar

Click on Windows Sidebar in the top pane.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)


"Cherish" <cherish@pochta.ru> wrote in message
news:F90F2838-B258-47AE-9E90-ECE970C127BB@microsoft.com...
> The Vista sidebar suddenly gone, along with all the gadgets. It doesn't
> show
> up at startup, it refuses to start manually, it doesn't appear at the
> system
> tray, it's not on the processes list. I was unable to delete settings.ini
> located at Program Files\Windows Sidebar, neither by pressing delete, nor
> by
> using Unlocker. I don't use System Restore (there are several reasons for
> that). I've seen some people complaining about similar problem on some
> other
> MS forums, but no one gave any useful advice.
> Using Vista Home Premium x86, all updates installed.
> Does anybody know what should I try? Thanks in advance.
>

Happened to me; had to start it from it's directory with run as admin even
thought my logon was in the admin group. Problem turned out to be the defrag
option of a registry cleaner. Fix was to restore registry.


"Cherish" <cherish@pochta.ru> wrote in message
news:F90F2838-B258-47AE-9E90-ECE970C127BB@microsoft.com...
> The Vista sidebar suddenly gone, along with all the gadgets. It doesn't
> show
> up at startup, it refuses to start manually, it doesn't appear at the
> system
> tray, it's not on the processes list. I was unable to delete settings.ini
> located at Program Files\Windows Sidebar, neither by pressing delete, nor
> by
> using Unlocker. I don't use System Restore (there are several reasons for
> that). I've seen some people complaining about similar problem on some
> other
> MS forums, but no one gave any useful advice.
> Using Vista Home Premium x86, all updates installed.
> Does anybody know what should I try? Thanks in advance.
>

Hi Cherish,

See if this post from Craig helps.

<quote>

I've also had this problem for the last few weeks, though happily I fixed it
today.

This was in part with a call with MS support, and in part watching what
sidebar.exe was doing with Procmon. I'm not certain that my reasoning is
correct below, but you may get some mileage from it.

I suspect that an application had installed a duff copy of atl.dll (in my
case I think it was from HP's IPaq Choice Points program - as procmon showed
a reference to an HP directory when sidebar tried to start up).

I uninstalled the HP program to be sure. In the same way you may wish to
search your machine to see if you have multiple copies of atl.dll before
starting.

Upon the advice of MS support, I unregistered a couple of sidebar DLLs. This
took me a little while as I didn't realise the DLL's are in Program
Files\Windows Sidebar directory (windows search never found them for me,
which is a touch annoying). Anyway to do this bit:

1. Start an elevated privileges command prompt
2. cd "\Program Files\Windows Sidebar"
3. regsvr32 -u sbdrop.dll
4. regsvr32 -u wlsrvc.dll

I then tried to re-register them, but it wouldn't work - I just got an error
message. After some hunting around, I decided to first register (re-register
?) ati.dll. I didn't try to unregister it first, and as I definitely only
had one ati.dll now, I didn't have to go looking for it to check I had the
right one - but you might have to. I don't know what will happen in you
unregister ati.dll so be warned.

So the next bit as I did it is:

1. From the same elevated command prompt (still in the C:\Program
Files\Windows Sidebar) directory
2. regsvr32 ati.dll
3. regsvr32 sbdrop.dll
4. regsvr32 wlsrvc.dll

With the ati.dll done first, the Sidebar DLLs registered fine. Then I tried
to start sidebar.exe again and it came up fine.

I had over previous weeks deleted all the sidebar settings and such like in
an attempt to get it working, so I guess that might still be necessary as
well - but my feeling is that it's really to do with the dll's above and the
settings removal isn't important.

Hope it works out for you, because this was annoying the heck out of me for
weeks.

Craig.

</quote>

Ref: http://groups.google.com/group/micr...367f1868f0de080
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
From: SStarman <SStar...@discussions.microsoft.com>
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 06:24:54 -0800
Local: Sun, Mar 4 2007 7:24 pm
Subject: RE: Sidebar will not launch

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
WindowsR Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


"Cherish" <cherish@pochta.ru> wrote in message news:F90F2838-B258-47AE-9E90-ECE970C127BB@microsoft.com...
The Vista sidebar suddenly gone, along with all the gadgets. It doesn't show
up at startup, it refuses to start manually, it doesn't appear at the system
tray, it's not on the processes list. I was unable to delete settings.ini
located at Program Files\Windows Sidebar, neither by pressing delete, nor by
using Unlocker. I don't use System Restore (there are several reasons for
that). I've seen some people complaining about similar problem on some other
MS forums, but no one gave any useful advice.
Using Vista Home Premium x86, all updates installed.
Does anybody know what should I try? Thanks in advance.

how do you register stuff
"Ramesh, MS-MVP" wrote:

> Hi Cherish,
>
> See if this post from Craig helps.
>
> <quote>
>
> I've also had this problem for the last few weeks, though happily I fixed it
> today.
>
> This was in part with a call with MS support, and in part watching what
> sidebar.exe was doing with Procmon. I'm not certain that my reasoning is
> correct below, but you may get some mileage from it.
>
> I suspect that an application had installed a duff copy of atl.dll (in my
> case I think it was from HP's IPaq Choice Points program - as procmon showed
> a reference to an HP directory when sidebar tried to start up).
>
> I uninstalled the HP program to be sure. In the same way you may wish to
> search your machine to see if you have multiple copies of atl.dll before
> starting.
>
> Upon the advice of MS support, I unregistered a couple of sidebar DLLs. This
> took me a little while as I didn't realise the DLL's are in Program
> Files\Windows Sidebar directory (windows search never found them for me,
> which is a touch annoying). Anyway to do this bit:
>
> 1. Start an elevated privileges command prompt
> 2. cd "\Program Files\Windows Sidebar"
> 3. regsvr32 -u sbdrop.dll
> 4. regsvr32 -u wlsrvc.dll
>
> I then tried to re-register them, but it wouldn't work - I just got an error
> message. After some hunting around, I decided to first register (re-register
> ?) ati.dll. I didn't try to unregister it first, and as I definitely only
> had one ati.dll now, I didn't have to go looking for it to check I had the
> right one - but you might have to. I don't know what will happen in you
> unregister ati.dll so be warned.
>
> So the next bit as I did it is:
>
> 1. From the same elevated command prompt (still in the C:\Program
> Files\Windows Sidebar) directory
> 2. regsvr32 ati.dll
> 3. regsvr32 sbdrop.dll
> 4. regsvr32 wlsrvc.dll
>
> With the ati.dll done first, the Sidebar DLLs registered fine. Then I tried
> to start sidebar.exe again and it came up fine.
>
> I had over previous weeks deleted all the sidebar settings and such like in
> an attempt to get it working, so I guess that might still be necessary as
> well - but my feeling is that it's really to do with the dll's above and the
> settings removal isn't important.
>
> Hope it works out for you, because this was annoying the heck out of me for
> weeks.
>
> Craig.
>
> </quote>
>
> Ref: http://groups.google.com/group/micr...367f1868f0de080
> Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
> From: SStarman <SStar...@discussions.microsoft.com>
> Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 06:24:54 -0800
> Local: Sun, Mar 4 2007 7:24 pm
> Subject: RE: Sidebar will not launch
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
> WindowsR Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com
>
>
> "Cherish" <cherish@pochta.ru> wrote in message news:F90F2838-B258-47AE-9E90-ECE970C127BB@microsoft.com...
> The Vista sidebar suddenly gone, along with all the gadgets. It doesn't show
> up at startup, it refuses to start manually, it doesn't appear at the system
> tray, it's not on the processes list. I was unable to delete settings.ini
> located at Program Files\Windows Sidebar, neither by pressing delete, nor by
> using Unlocker. I don't use System Restore (there are several reasons for
> that). I've seen some people complaining about similar problem on some other
> MS forums, but no one gave any useful advice.
> Using Vista Home Premium x86, all updates installed.
> Does anybody know what should I try? Thanks in advance.
>