As I noted, there's an even simpler fix that never requires you to do that. Copy the following text; save it in Notepad and call the file "GadgetsFix.cmd". Save that file somewhere (I put it in a "Utilities" folder in Program File). Now you have two choices:
(1) If you never want to have to bother with it, just put a shortcut to it in your Startup folder. Also, right-click the shortcut and set it to run minimized. Now your gadgets will ALWAYS load. Note that if they load correctly on bootup, they will briefly disappear ... then reappear. But they will always be there
(2) If you don't like the "disappear-then reappear" behavior on some boots; you can just put a shortcut to the file on your desktop instead of having it always run. Then whenever the gadgets don't appear, just double-click the shortcut.
Here's the code for the batch file:
@echo off
timeout 2
tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq sidebar.exe" 2>NUL | find /I /N "sidebar.exe">NUL
IF "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" (
taskkill /f /im:sidebar.exe
) else (
start "" "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe"
)
timeout 1
tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq sidebar.exe" 2>NUL | find /I /N "sidebar.exe">NUL
IF "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" (
taskkill /f /im:sidebar.exe
) else (
start "" "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe"
)
exit
