IE11 Appears not to support gadgets. What are the alternatives ?

It was worth a shot.

AddRAM said:

There are plenty of gadgets out there to replace any stock windows gadgets, and some of them look exactly the same.

This is what I thought but the reality is knowing which are good well written gadgets which are both safe and on safe sites to download from.

It was easy to find a CPU meter and weather gadget (msn one ?) but both files installed malware, pc optimisers, toolbars, frog something or other etc etc despite there being no mention or option to not install this junk.

I use Acronis, so it didn't matter to me, I just had a good play :)


I'm intrigued by the earlier post where someone mentions editing the XML file. Haven't a clue how to do that but if it can be done I'm a quick learner. I know where the file lives, I can open it in notepad and see zillions of random characters so I'm assuming I need a proper editor. They seem available as freeware. Acronis again But what would I be looking for to alter and replace.

Mooly said:

I'm intrigued by the earlier post where someone mentions editing the XML file. Haven't a clue how to do that but if it can be done I'm a quick learner. I know where the file lives, I can open it in notepad and see zillions of random characters so I'm assuming I need a proper editor. They seem available as freeware. Acronis again But what would I be looking for to alter and replace.

Make a backup copy of the original file. Open with notepad and delete the whole row that contains the following tag:
<autoscaleDPI><!--_locComment_text="{Locked}"-->true</autoscaleDPI>
Don't leave an empty row in the script, delete it entirely.

DrDivan55 said:

The problem is indeed caused by the DPI settings of the PC. Gadgets appear incorrectly if the DPI value is set above 100%, although one may use a custom value of 110% and gadgets seem to appear almost correctly. The reason for the problem is that the default gadgets in Windows 7 have a DPI-locking tag. So there are two ways to resolve this issue:
1. Set the DPI value to 100-110%.
2. The second one requires some basic XML editing skills. One has to delete the locking tag from the XML file completely as setting the value to auto will not resolve it. I am not sure, but this however, might be against Microsoft's policy. In case someone wants to try this one, please, at least make a backup copy of the original file.

Your a star :) but I need help

You gave me a clue as to what to look at and I have had some success but I'm stuck on making the gadgets bigger. I saw the word "true" in the file and changed it to "false" and lo and behold the gadgets display correctly. I tried changing the icon size numbers on the weather gadget but it always displays this size.

Lol... now that's a coincidence. We posted together... hadn't seen your message.

I'll try deleting the whole row as you say.

Any idea on how to make them a wee bit bigger ?

I keep an analogue clock and a calendar gadget on my second screen and it became almost mandatory but since IE11 went in, the clock will not launch and the calendar comes and goes with start-ups. Right now the calendar is up but I really miss the clock. I haven't the faintest idea how to edit scripts however. Just to be certain; was it IE11 that did it? Because a large Windows/MS update also went in that day.