Sidebar full of calendars and takes a long time to start up

[Guest]

I'm trying to help my mom with her new PC that came with Vista Home Basic.
For some reason, her sidebar has multiple copies of the calendar gadget.
When she starts the system, it will take 4-5 minutes after bootup for the
sidebar to appear. Any attempt to remove something results in a system
lockup. Going into sidebar confiig and viewing the list shows multiple
instances of the calendar. Trying to remove even one results in same lockup
requiring a reboot. For now, we selected the option to not start sidebar
when Windows starts.

Has anyone see this problem? Is there anyway to reset sidebar to the
defaults. I can't tell if this is a bug or somehow my mom has managed to
start dozens of the same gadget. She says she didn't do anything, but no way
to tell.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Oh, and I have to do this remotely. We live 500 miles apart. I love being
the family help desk!

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem and I've seen a few others with it as well..

Good 'ole M$ products

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure how this can actually happen but I suspect because Sidebar will
allow multiple copies. Unfortunately, the only fix that any one has come up
with is a complete reinstall of Vista. IE, blow everything away and start
over. If you are willing to do that, be sure you back up everything
including any Windows Mail items, favorites, printer definitions, etc.

Good luck.

 

[dean-dean]

To reset Windows Sidebar to the defaults, try this. Exit Windows Sidebar
and navigate to C:\Users\(Your Name)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar
(the path is hidden). Rename the file Settings.ini to Settings.ini.old.
Restart Windows Sidebar. A new Settings.ini will be created.

 

[Guest]

I will give that a try. Thanks for the tip!

To reset Windows Sidebar to the defaults, try this. Exit Windows Sidebar
and navigate to C:\Users\(Your Name)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar
(the path is hidden). Rename the file Settings.ini to Settings.ini.old.
Restart Windows Sidebar. A new Settings.ini will be created.

 

[Guest]

Thanks dean-dean! Your instructions worked! I found the ini file and
renamed it and started Sidebar and voila, back to square one. The base ini
file is about 2K in size. My Mom's was 202K. I still don't know how she
managed to start a gazillion copies of the calendar, but she did. Or, maybe
it was a MS bug. Either way, things seem back to normal. Dell support was
totally useless when we tried them. They said I would have to reload the OS.
Thanks very much for your response. You saved me hours of frustration.

 

[dean-dean]

I'm glad things are back to normal. You can delete "Settings.ini.old"; it
looks to be pretty corrupt! It's hard to say how that happened.