Micro$oft and Gadgets

Crashnburn

Crashnburn

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Crashnburn
Microsoft introduced gadgets with Windows Vista. I think I was slow to use them, but now it's hard to live without them. At first, in Windows 10, they had a sidebar just for gadgets, and I had a lot of them. I like to monitor my CPU cores, main drive, GPU, and internet connections. I recently found a gadget that displays the moon's phases in real time.

With Microsoft's most recent "upgrade" of Windows 10, they got rid of the gadget sidebar, and disabled gadgets. Luckily, I found a utility that re-enabled gadgets, but didn't bring the sidebar back. So, I have my gadgets of choice in two columns on the right side of my monitor. (That's actually more convenient than having to page through to see them.)

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft completely disables gadgets in Windows 11. I don't have to worry about them covertly upgrading my computer because Windows 11 needs TPM 2.0, and it isn't available on my computer.

I have never had a problem with people using my gadgets as a backdoor into my PC, and whatever happened to "My Computer, My Choice!" ;)
 
Crashnburn said:
I have never had a problem with people using my gadgets as a backdoor into my PC, and whatever happened to "My Computer, My Choice!" ;)
Click to expand...

You have the option of some sort of Linux install.
 
The concept of widgets/gadgets has been around since the Enlightenment Desktop Environment, in the early 1990's. Windows copied them, along with a few other Desktop features.

There are several Desktop Environments (DEs) that still use them, such as KDE Plasma and just about any other Linux based OS.

You can bypass the TPM 2.0 and CPU requirements for Win11 and install it on older computers. They gave up on that.

There is still plenty of choice for your PC, but that is not Microsoft's way of doing things...
 
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