The new sidebar in Windows Vista provides many opportunities to present the user with information. For those of you that like to monitor your system performance, the sidebar is the perfect place to run various performance monitoring gadgets. Windows Vista ships with a simple CPU and Memory usage gadget, however, there are many more gadgets out there that are much more useful and help you monitor almost every aspect of Windows.
1. Wireless Signal and IP Address Gadget
This gadget displays your wireless network information such as it's status, signal strength and security. This gadget also displays your internal IP and gives you a direct link to your router's / wireless gateway's web based control panel.
2. Battery Meter Gadget
Monitor the battery level of your laptop with this gadget. This gadget provides a much more accurate level reading than the tiny system tray icon.
3. Multi-Meter Gadget
Info shown: - Cpu usage % ( 2 cores ) - Ram Usage % - Ram info ( Total, used, left size) - Status bars animated above 90% - 100 Skins + background selection
4. Uptime Gadget
This gadget allows you to see how much time has passed since you last restarted your computer.
5. Free Space Gadget
This gadget monitors your PC's drives and shows you the available space for those you've selected .......
I've looked, unsuccessfully, for software that can monitor an report on program or services that run during the day on my computer. I've looked in Administrative Tools but didn't find any log files there. Task Manager|Services tab don't have a sort by starting time. I'm not really concerned with the services that start when my computer starts. I have an event sound for 'Open program' and it seems to be getting triggered more than I would prefer.
What I am looking for is the ability to create system restore points manually without the overhead of the monitoring function which is required by the automatic process.
Is there any way to monitor internet traffic. I am interested in seeing what programs are using the internet. When I boot my machine I notice internet activity on the DSL box. Since I haven't started any programs I am wondering what is using the internet before I do. I can only assume that things like Windows Update are checking stuff as well as other programs unbeknownst to me. Running Vista Home Premium.
I am looking for software for Vista 64 for internet download bandwidth monitoring. I have Tautology Bandwidthmeter. Tautology Bandwidth Meter - Internet Traffic Usage Monitor and Netmeter. Net Meter - LAN Net Meter, WAN Net Meter, Broadband Meter, Broadband Usage Meter allready. obviously programmes Vista 64 compatible would be idea, but Vista 32 compatability or even just XP compatability would be okay as a lot of stuff will run in Vista 64 that was designed for Vista 32 or XP.
When I was running XP Pro my printer driver allowed me to see my ink levels. When I moved to Vista the old driver no longer worked and the Vista driver did not provide any capability for monitoring ink levels. Does anyone know of a utility that would allow me to see the ink levels in a HP g95 all-in-one printer under the Vista OS?
I noticed today while digging around in System Restore's settings that it has monitoring enabled on my Gateway computers recovery partition. I disabled it as I don't think monitoring that partition is necessary. Am i right?
i have been looking at the post for showing your desktop, can you advise me of any safe sites apart from microsoft for downloading vista gadgets please
I am unable to install any new sidebar gadgets. The gadgets that came with Vista, (contacts, currency, weather, etc.) I can "Add Gadget" ok. When I go to "Get more gadgets online", then I have issues. When I pick a gadget, then click the download button, I get the Install and Don't Install buttons. Clicking the Install button causes a message to appear on my status bar, then nothing. I don't know what the status bar message says because it is only there less than 1 second. Nothing is downloaded to my computer and no new gadget appears in the Add Gadget list........
Is it possible to change the Vista Sidebar's width or have it auto-hide? I haven't found a way to change the width, but would like to (assuming any gadgets can use the extra width. I also am interested in having the Sidebar auto-hide. I found a gadget somewhere that claimed it could add auto-hide. I was suspicious as I didn't think that Sidebar would let a mere gadget change the bar's appearance. Sidebar claimed my download was corrupt. I didn't attempt another download. Because of these issues, I looked into other sidebars, but the only one I liked that worked was Google Desktop which won't install. I have Vista 64-bit SP1 and GD requires a 32-bit OS.
I am been trying to install new sidebar gadgets for a while now, but all i keep getting is "installation of windows sidebar gadget is managed by your system administrator" I am the system adminstrator, and i have tried to install a few gadgets but it keeps coming up with the same text
I have been having problems with things just changing themselves I have run avira antivirus with latest updates and spybot pc tools with latest update and found nothing. I run restore and it says i could not restore yet it changes things, gadgets have stopped running sidebar appears to be working but gadgets appear corrupted i have uninstalled them and reinstalled them still the same, media center just decided it would not recognise my tv card after working happily for months do i have to format regularly to keep things as they should be or can i repair vista the same as you could xp
When I have a couple of programs open and need to get back to the Desktop to see something I've noticed that the SideBar containing the Gadgets disappears when I use the SHOW DESKTOP BUTTON in the Taskbar. If I minimize the windows, the SideBar of course is still visible, it's only upon using the Show Desktop Button that the Gadgets disappear. Is this normail or have I got a setting wrong?
Initially, I had a problem with my sidebar gadgets getting out of order each time I turned on or restarted my computer. I hacked the registry, which enabled me to keep my sidebar gadgets in order, but now I can't add any new gadgets except for the ones that either I already had downloaded and installed (WoW Explorer and App Launcher), or that came with WinVsta Ultimate.....................
This is my 1st post so be gentle with me. I have tried to resolve this problem on Computeractive Forums to no avail and was pointed to your community as a possible saviour. The problem is I cannot install any GADGETS at all.
- I have checked that the file associations is OK - I've tried to directly from Windows Gallery - I've tried to on my PC - I've been through and carried out the suggested Register changes - I've ensured all Windows Updates are installed - I've checked that Norton Firewall is not blocking the program(s) - I've un-installed all standard GADGETS & tried to install new ones
To rub salt into my wounds, when I ran the Norton360 V2 update it loaded a GADGET into the "holding window" !!! (and yes, I did then try al the above afterwards). Can anyone point me in the right direction as this problems driving me NUTS
Today I started experiencing some strange problems with Vista's sidebar. I've never had this problem before and I've spent hours trying to fix the problem. Basically the problem I'm having looks something like this:
I've just dragged a few of the default gadgets to the sidebar to show you the problem I'm having. The Weather gadget seems to be the only one that is functioning correctly. I also cannot install user created gadgets from gallery.live.com.
I've already tried the many different combinations of re-registering various DLL files that I've seen around on the Internet but this hasn't made a difference. Could this be a problem with Java or XML? Is there a way of totally reinstalling the Vista Sidebar without having to a) do a System Restore or b) create a Vista installation disk to do a repair with?
I'm not sure where else to post this, and I've searched around for it. Basically, I had to restart Vista, when it started back up it did a consistency check on the C drive. Then, once I got into Vista, one of my two notes and the clock vanished. I cannot get them back.
1)Clock does not show on Add Gadgets, but there is a Clock.Gadget in "C:Program FilesWindows SidebarGadgets" 2)Also, under the Windows Sidebar Properties a) "Restore gadgets installed with Windows" is disabled b) "View list of running gadgets" shows me two instances of Notes,
when only one is visible -- and I don't want to remove it because I don't want to lose the content there. How do I give the Sidebar a kick to bring it back to reality?
I can't get my sidebar to work like it did when i got my computer. On the sidebar normally, when you move a gadget to a new location there is an animation where the other gadgets slide into place. My gadgets dont slide anymore. They snap into the new location in a single frame. Technically I don't lose any funtionality, but it is frustating since I am a fan of aesthetics.
I turned on my computer this morning, put in my password in the log-in screen as usual. Then when windows started I noticed that my wallpaper was the original vista wallpaper, all my sidebar gadgets were just the starting ones, and that about half my desktop shortcuts were missing. On top of that, all my documents, pictures, music, and even my bookmarks on mozilla firefox were gone!! But oddly enough when I go into C:/users/Matt everything is where it should be. But if i use the links from the start bar, it takes me to Users/Temp folder.
When you download a new gadget, where does Vista store the files? I want to insure when I deleted a few gadgets that I downloaded, all of the files are gone.
Does anyone know why when I reboot my computer my gadgets move out of place? My other computers don't move it's only this computer. Vista Home Premium x64-bit SP2
I have a problem with the sidebar on Vista HP. New Gadgets wont install. The sidebar loads properly and the gadgets that are there already work fine. If I go to vista gallery to download new ones they download ok I click open then run, the sidebar comes to the front and blinks but nothing installs There is nothing in the sidebar and nothing in the gallery and nothing new in the gadgets folder in either C:program files etc or C:users etc. I have tried lots of different gadgets from the vista gallery and none of them install. I tried. Downloading and installing from ie8b2.......
my full desktop is filled with sidebar gadgets, but I am facing a = strange problem, the gadgets keep on moving from right (hand side) to = left, the movement though is very slow. I have found that it moves only = when I start the laptop. Can I stop this movement.
First is there a group for win 7? And second I was checking things out and found out this on the desktopn gadgets, when I click on it inthe control manager it says this Desktop Gadgets are managed by your system administer. Why can't I access it?
I've suddenly got a steep proformance drop that makes playing all my games pretty much impossible.
It usually states when I'm playing MW2. I turn on the game and have no performance issues. I enter a game and no performance issues. The game starts and no performance issues. It's only until around 5-10 minutes in that I experience the performance drop. When that happens, I can't do anything except to hope that the performance goes back up again. Reducing the resolution does not help. Changing my graphics card from quality based to proformance based does not help. Increasing my performance vs power saving does not help. I'm not running any other programs that are using up all the space (How would I? you can't even tab out of MW2 while you're playing it). Restarting the computer also does not help.
Worse still, this performance drop also affects everything else randomly as well. I really don't know what I can do.
