Thanks for the help again... I tried the clean startup, and the problem wasn't there. I opened the guest account and tried opening the gadget, but the problem was there too. So I just decided to ignore it... but, as it turns out, I'm not good at that either. I gotta figure this out.. it's like an annoying eye twitch, or a hair in your throat.
Had the same problem. Couldn't find the gadget. But I found it. Where ???
Go to Control Panel, select Desktop Gadgets...and there it is ! "iolo PC Status" .
Just double click it and it will appear on your desktop.
Now that was easy !
(SM: System Mechanic (Pro). I am presuming you are running on an Administrator account)
If everything fails,
Try turning UAC all down (or up 1 if its all down as some report problems with side panel and UAC off). Mine is off and I don't have a problem with side panel. Log in again after each change. If it doesn't help leave the UAC all the way down.
Don't uninstall/Install yet. I will tell you soon enough.
Write down your SM registration code if needed.
Make sure windows is updated. .NET might be needed (not sure) try updating it at least to ensure resolving some compatibility issues.
Make sure graphics drivers are updated. (might be various drivers you can update. I find Driver Agent a good source).
Install SM if it's not installed.
There is a chance that the panel is a ressidue from an old installation. Hopefully the many following steps will catch that. You can try looking a bit on the harddisk/registry yourself.
The control panel item is called Desktop Gadgets as pfauteux said. Open it and uninstall the iolo gadget if it doesn't work in side panel.
Install Revo uninstaller (Free) and tell it to uninstall SM and clean it all up. Restart and reinstall SM.
Start SM manually and scan for any errors. (read next first) You should also fix them all.
If you got extern usb drives be careful about SM scanning these .. You could disconnect them or tell SM to bypass them.
When done with SM: Remember to reinstall bluetooth drivers if you make a registry cleanup. Telling SM to ignore registry keys/problems permanently doesn't work for me. So reinstalling driver each time I clean registry fully. I don't know about any other drivers with problems.
Restart. Chances is that System Mechanic is now installed and working correctly. If the gadget still isn't displayed even after restart, we should turn our attention to the side panel.
Start optionalfeatures.exe (Features also found in Control Panel --> Programs and Features).
Try disabling and then enabling Windows Gadget Platform, each time relogging into the account.Try another gadget to see if it works.
Have you disabled any services? This might be worth investigating. Try to restore default values for those related to explorer/desktop at least.
I would also try to uninstall software I don't need:
Using Revo and google, identify installed programs. Things that change Windows UI behavior are good suspects.
You can try disabling them first in msconfig, if you think they are important to you. Be sure not to disable things needed for gadget side panel or system mechanic.
If still no luck, a Windows restore or even reinstall, probably is the easier way to go.
Be sure to backup as much as you need if you reinstall Windows.
Before taking such a step, I would use Recover Keys (or similar) to backup my registration keys and copy the users under C:\Users at the very least (deleting/skipping directories that has become to big with trivial downloads etc.)
Last edited by k9dog; 08 Apr 2012 at 04:13.
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