Windows Sidebar Multiple Gadgets crashing Vista

[Guest]

On my wife's side of Vista Home Premium not mine, the Windows Sidebar somehow
seems to have dozens of clock and notes which cannot be deleted. When I try
and do something about it (delete gadgets manually) whole of Vista freezes.
When I go to Sidebar properties to try and reset default gadget it isn't
available to be clicked. Only just sorted out a rogue sticky email in WM now
this...Help please Thx

 

[keepout]

On my wife's side of Vista Home Premium not mine, the Windows Sidebar somehow
seems to have dozens of clock and notes which cannot be deleted. When I try
and do something about it (delete gadgets manually) whole of Vista freezes.
When I go to Sidebar properties to try and reset default gadget it isn't
available to be clicked. Only just sorted out a rogue sticky email in WMnow
this...Help please Thx

my only experience might help.
I added the wallpaper by Jonathon Abbott.
FWIW: once you get it installed it works great.
The installation is bad, and I suspect it's affected other things. It took so long to install the 1st time, things looked like it hung. I hit reinstall, hanging twice now, and eventually brought Vista to it's knees and froze up everything.
I cold power rebooted, no wallpaper gadget. opened the gadgets, there were now 2 wallpaper gadgets. I hit one of them. It went and disabled vista again. another cold reboot. Finally it's on the gadget panel. Stillhave 2 wallpapers in gadgets. uninstall 1 of them [You can't you must have supervisory permissions]. I no longer argue with machines. Did another cold reboot. down to 1 wallpaper and it's running on the gadget panel. Configured it. Not a problem since.

As for deleting the dozens of gadgets, see if she doesn't also have dozens of them in the gadget interface. recall, I had 2 wallpapers cause of the crappy install. Stupid interface will install the same gadget overand over again, at least twice that I know of. And you have to delete the dupes one by one there in the panel. And for every one in the panel, you can have an identical one on the bar.

This experience, and the total lack of useful gadgets, keeps me at just this 1 gadget from a 3rd party. I use the notepad, and CPU meter gadget.
You also realize that all those gadgets do take away clock cycles. Slows down other things on your machine.

 

[Guest]

This is almost the exact thing happening on my Vista laptop.
The sidebar crashes as soon as I start the computer. It appears to be trying
to load a lot of instances of the calendar. I cannot reset it as that option
is grayed out because it never stops trying to load and if I turn the sidebar
off it is still grayed out. The computer runs fine as long as the sidebar is
turned off. The only thing I have done prior to this happening is install a
few of the MS updates for this month. Actually the computer seems to work
faster without the sidebar, but I would still like to fix it. I hope someone
has some advice regarding this.

 

[keepout]

This is almost the exact thing happening on my Vista laptop.
The sidebar crashes as soon as I start the computer. It appears to be trying
to load a lot of instances of the calendar. I cannot reset it as that option
is grayed out because it never stops trying to load and if I turn the sidebar
off it is still grayed out. The computer runs fine as long as the sidebar is
turned off. The only thing I have done prior to this happening is install a
few of the MS updates for this month. Actually the computer seems to work
faster without the sidebar, but I would still like to fix it. I hope someone
has some advice regarding this.

start by removing all the 3rd party extras. You do realize those are justtoys written by amateurs ? The warning by M$ was not to be ignore. It's buyer beware.
fire up your machine then start removing at the root those extras.
Don't fire up the sidebar. Go to C:\users\'user_name'\appdata\local\microsoft\windows sidebar
then look for gadget folders outside of the standard gadget folder. ie: my wallpaper gadget = C:\users\my_name\appdata\local\microsoft\windows sidebar\Gadgets\DesktopWallpaperv1.2.1.0.Gadget

Since this gadget works, but has serious problems with uninstalling. If/when I choose to delete that gadget, I'll just delete the folder.
Which is what you should do is delete all those worthless gadgets foldersthat are causing troubles.
Don't delete the C:\users\my_name\appdata\local\microsoft\windows sidebar\Gadgets folder
That's should be all the gadgets. If you know 1 gadget works, and 1 fails. just remove the failures.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for info where gadgets are located, however I have nothing there other
than an empty gadget folder and have never downloaded any gadgets. The only
gadgets I had in the sidebar were the ones that came with Vista. I thought
perhaps it might have been one of the updates that caused the problem.

 

[keepout]

Thanks for info where gadgets are located, however I have nothing there other
than an empty gadget folder and have never downloaded any gadgets. The only
gadgets I had in the sidebar were the ones that came with Vista. I thought
perhaps it might have been one of the updates that caused the problem.

Then you should just delete those gadgets that appear more than once, 1ston the gadget bar, and 2nd in the gadget interface.
You can get help from the start menu on how to restore the gadgets to their original condition.

 

[Guest]

In the folder "C:\users\my_name\appdata\local\microsoft\windows sidebar\"
there is just an empty gadget folder and settings.ini file. So there is
nothing to delete from the gadgets folder.

When I opened the ini file in notepad there are more than 100 entries
similar to the following

"[Section 6
PrivateSetting_GadgetName="C:%5CProgram%20Files%5CWindows%20Sidebar%5CGadgets%5CCalendar.Gadget"
PrivateSetting_Enabled="true"
dockedCalendarView="DAY_DOCKED"
dockedCalendarDivType="dow"
unDockedCalendarView="MONTH_UNDOCKED" "

then changes to

"[Section 182
PrivateSetting_GadgetName="C:%5CProgram%20Files%5CWindows%20Sidebar%5CGadgets%5CCalendar.Gadget"
PrivateSetting_Enabled="true" "

This repeats until Section 409

Before that under the heading:

OneTimeRemoveGadgetMessageShown="true"

it shows

Section3="4"

right up to

Section406="409"

Is it okay to remove duplicates of these entries. I hate to do anything that
might mess up my computer just to get the sidebar back but if I can do it
without any problem, it would be nice to have it back.

Thanks again for your help - it is certainly appreciated especially, as you
can tell, I am not that confident messing about with these things.

 

[keepout]

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:38:01 -0700, Marlene O

Do what I do.
Take that ini file. copy it somewhere safe maybe another drive where you can
put it out of harms way, but restore it if necessary.
Then do exactly what you said. delete all those dupe entries. and resave the
ini. It may be protected. so you might have to edit its permissions 1st.
ie: right click - properties - security - select admin or users - advanced -
take ownership and full access.
I just looked at my ini file. 3 gadgets = 50 lines, 3 sections.
I'm thinking you could just RENAME that ini file. from settings.ini to
settings_ini.bak
pretty much the same as deleting the ini file, but you don't. you just rename
it to it's original if everything goes south.
But I'm thinking if you rename it, then reboot, the OS will recreate a NEW INI.
Possibly a blank one where you can add gadgets from scratch.
If not you haven't lost anything but the time it takes to rename and reboot.

Or just use the help system. It takes you step by step on how to restore the
gadgets to original condition.
No idea how you got it all screwed up less you stuck all the gadgets on the
sidebar over and over again.

start - help & support - gadgets - uninstall gadgets.
the note says if you've uninstalled and want to restore,
'Click to open Windows Sidebar Properties. '
So if you do screw up, as long as you can access the help system, and the
original INI file. You should be ok.

I'd start with tap the sidebar icon in the tray, then the '+' to open the
interface, and show all. If you have dupe gadgets there, that's where I'dstart
uninstalling them.

uninstall 1 at a time, closing the interface between edits.

In the folder "C:\users\my_name\appdata\local\microsoft\windows sidebar\"
there is just an empty gadget folder and settings.ini file. So there is
nothing to delete from the gadgets folder.

When I opened the ini file in notepad there are more than 100 entries
similar to the following

"[Section 6]
PrivateSetting_GadgetName="C:%5CProgram%20Files%5CWindows%20Sidebar%5CGadgets%5CCalendar.Gadget"
PrivateSetting_Enabled="true"
dockedCalendarView="DAY_DOCKED"
dockedCalendarDivType="dow"
unDockedCalendarView="MONTH_UNDOCKED" "

then changes to

"[Section 182]
PrivateSetting_GadgetName="C:%5CProgram%20Files%5CWindows%20Sidebar%5CGadgets%5CCalendar.Gadget"
PrivateSetting_Enabled="true" "

This repeats until Section 409

Before that under the heading:

OneTimeRemoveGadgetMessageShown="true"

it shows

Section3="4"

right up to

Section406="409"

Is it okay to remove duplicates of these entries. I hate to do anything that
might mess up my computer just to get the sidebar back but if I can do it
without any problem, it would be nice to have it back.

Thanks again for your help - it is certainly appreciated especially, as you
can tell, I am not that confident messing about with these things.

Then you should just delete those gadgets that appear more than once, 1st on the gadget bar, and 2nd in the gadget interface.
You can get help from the start menu on how to restore the gadgets to their original condition.

 

[Guest]

I finally got up the courage to try your advice. I renamed the ini file and
restarted Vista (I had the sidebar turned off). Then I started the sidebar
again. It started perfectly. I checked and it had made a nice shiny new
settings.ini file and like you said it had 3 sections only.

The sidebar calendar showed Aug 10 but when I clicked on it, it corrected
itself.

Thank you so much for your excellent help. I am so happy to having it
working again.

 

[keepout]

I finally got up the courage to try your advice. I renamed the ini file and
restarted Vista (I had the sidebar turned off). Then I started the sidebar
again. It started perfectly. I checked and it had made a nice shiny new
settings.ini file and like you said it had 3 sections only.

The sidebar calendar showed Aug 10 but when I clicked on it, it corrected
itself.

Thank you so much for your excellent help. I am so happy to having it
working again.

Courage ? renaming wouldn't cause any problems. ie: You can always restore it
by renaming it back to the original. And back to crappy square one, That's the
ONLY way I handle things when someone advises to DELETE file xxxxx.xxx. Just
rename it. if it works without it great. If not rename it back.

Just don't keep smacking the same gadget over and over again in the future.

That's what happened with my wallpaper. It took forever to NOT install itself.
Crapped up everything while it was doing it. I smacked install again, andsame
grueling process to NOT install. But somehow it did install 2 copies. Andneeds
admin rights to uninstall. No it doesn't you delete the folder it's sitting in
and it's uninstalled.
Patience is the worst thing you need to learn with a computer. Not everything
[cheapos] give you a progress indicator, and you can't rely on a drive light or
memory monitor. That's why I drink so much coffee.

Last advice. Leave the renamed ini alone for a week or two, make sure alls
well. After about 2 weeks, no more problems, you can delete the renamed ini
file. clear up some drive space.

Sometimes finding the file to delete requires more digging. ie: Had to rename a
file from one program that wasn't Nero, because Nero was trying to load it and
failing on 2 programs. Renaming found the problem, but it was now uselessfor
my other program. So couldn't use the other program with Nero running.