Stand-Alone Sidebar Gadgets???

By Chubs39 Posted May 1, 2008 11:29:54

Just curious to hear if anyone out there has successfully exported anything as a stand-alone sidebar gadget and had it work on another system without DesktopX installed. I just installed the 3.5 Pro release, created a simple object with images that swap out using the mouse-away, mouse-over states, and exported as a stand-alone sidebar gadget. It works fine on my DesktopX Pro system, but not on my laptop without DesktopX. Both are running 32-bit Vista with SP1.

Reading some other posts just now and I think I should include the fact that both machines have UAC turned off.

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Anyone?

I am confused but very interested.

Did you take a sidebar gadget and make it a stand alone gadget?

If so, I would love to know how.

Nope, the other way around. You're supposed to be able to create a gadget in DesktopX and export it as a stand-alone sidebar gadget if you have DesktopX Pro. I have yet to be able to run an exported sidebar gadget on a machine without DesktopX installed, though. My original post was asking if anyone was able to do so.

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I believe you are referring to the DesktopX 'Enterprise' version, which costs quite a bit more than the regular DesktopX.

The enterprise version just offers some additional ActiveX integration and more security options. I have the "Pro" version: http://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/features.asp.

My export options include creating a standalone sidebar gadget - which has never worked correctly.

I have. Although I have heard of some people running into issues. One problem was that the gadget was made with a build of DX Pro that the Sidebar didn't like. Have you tried with the very latest version?

I did this a few times. The gadgets can work on any computers with Vista where the UAC must be TURNED ON. So you may create anything you want in the DesktopX and then to export your project as a Sidebar Gadget. And it will work.

However I found some other problems:
1. Any Vista Gadgets created with DX doesn't work stable.
2. The XGFRuntimeServer doesn't closes when you exit the sidebar (or close the gadget) that much angers people.
3. As well DX sidebar gadgets requires more system resources (like CPU and Memory) than the usual Microsoft Gadgets.

As a result I'm sure that DesktopX isn't totally ready for Vista! Just the amount of bugs is minimal now...