Desktop Gadgets - am I alone in finding these useless

Qdos said:

Gadgets are extremely useful, to keep a constant eye on the exchange rates which
interest you, the weather in locations of relevance to your work or leisure, or even
for monitoring the GDP and budgetary deficits of Iceland (should it amuse you...
or if you've had poor investments there...)

Why 'knock' something that simply isn't turned on by default? At least there's no
intrusive sidebar running in W7 as was the case in Vista. You can run entirely
without gadgets if you so prefer, so at least you have a choice (unlike any
number of different features of the new OS...)

Hi QDOS -- I did appreciate the fact that these aren't turned on by default as they were in VISTA.

I was actually curious to see if there was any consensus to see if these were actually liked or even often used.

Seems to be about 60 : 40 in the "I DON'T" use category.

As to the economy - I'd probably have just one gadget showing something like a Huge swimming pool with a Flow meter showing how many GBP per minute is being thrown at the UK banks at any given instant.

If you LIKE them then by all means use them.


Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

I was actually curious to see if there was any consensus to see if these were actually liked or even often used.

Seems to be about 60 : 40 in the "I DON'T" use category.

Well I'd say that asking a loaded, question like "Desktop Gadgets - am I alone in finding these useless..." is bound to attract more people who agree with that statement, than those who don't...

However you'd be unwise to take a tiny handful of replies to use as an opinion poll...

Joan Archer said:

I'm one that use the Gadgets but on Windows 7 I only have the clock and local weather, on my Vista install I also had the sticky notes

Joan - Stickies are on start menu now but if you drag and dock them to taskbar they are much handier. I just end up keeping one open all the time. Remarkably stable, always right where I left it unless video driver changes.

Well, I'd do the same... look out the window, but when I'm flying to one of the depots where I'm likely to be sent from time to time, and they can be several thousand miles away, and anything up to thirty-five degrees celcius lower in temperature than my own locale... well, looking out the window ain't much help!

A quick glance at my desktop is good, and saves me looking up weather sites.

Same applies for the exchange rate for these locations... it saves me a lot of time if that information can be shown under my nose rather than having to be researched...

I can't live without them anymore, finding the good ones is the hard part so I back up those little gadget files.

I agree that that vast majority of them are completely useless if not rediculous.

There are a few that are very useful in my opinion.

The good ones show the number of processor cores and percentage of use per core plus free and used memory functions. This helps to determine if any strange programs are using up CPU cycles at a glace, it also serves as a direct link to the task manager.

The network gadget shows network activity both up and down in great detail, plus the drive gadget shows how much free space and which DVD is in the drive. Keeping an eye on network activity is also a security measure for me as any strange network behavior will be spotted immediately.

When you are overclocking that type of info also seems more important for some reason.

I like being able to see computer system information at a glance and the resources these gadgets draw are next to nothing. I honestly can't think of any reason not to use them.

In case you hadn't noticed, you can open that weather gadget to view 3 day forecast at all times. Couldn't do without it here.

Thanks for the heads up on the network gadget but I get no hits searching Gadgets for "network" so far

The two I find really useful is the CPU Meter. That shows me if my system is spinning it's wheels. Also the AppLauncher which I use to launch most of my applications and folders. But they have to be "always on top". I reinstalled the Vista sidebar in Win7 just for that purpose and because that is the only way to make AppLauncher work.

Jacee said:

I don't use them on either Vista or Win 7. I don't need to see what the weather is doing... I look out side, and I have a clock in my taskbar

That reminds me. I use a Google gadget clock (just because its prettier than the 7 gadget) - but I don't need two clocks. Can I turn off the standard clock display somewhere?

In fact, I'd like to hide the Recycle icon too.

RogerR said:

Jacee said:

I don't use them on either Vista or Win 7. I don't need to see what the weather is doing... I look out side, and I have a clock in my taskbar

That reminds me. I use a Google gadget clock (just because its prettier than the 7 gadget) - but I don't need two clocks. Can I turn off the standard clock display somewhere?

In fact, I'd like to hide the Recycle icon too.

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Notification Area Icons\System Icons