Microsoft urges Windows Vista, 7 users to disable desktop gadgets

So MS is crippling Win7 to get people to move to Win8 it would appear. I smell a class action coming. I paid for the features of Win7, do I get a rebate for having features removed? MS is heading in the wrong direction. BTW, I use dual monitors both at work and home, and I like my gadgets.

I use these 3 CoreTemp, Network Meter, Gpu Observer and don't plan on stopping.

Buy and SSD

For those who really need any type of monitoring tool or tools on your desktop, hard drive stats, CPU usage, RAM usage, Network speeds, both up and down and a wide range of other various monitoring tools. I would strongly recommend switching from Windows Gadgets and Sidebar, to a program called Rainmeter. I've been using it for about 7-8 years now and is one of the corner stones to my custom desktops.

Rainmeter
http://rainmeter.net/cms/

For what ever reason your a little leery about using something that you do not know, the web site I'm guiding you to have excellent information about the product, and included a wonderful "how to" guide.

That's kind of ridiculous, I think they meant downloaded gadgets, because I mostly use the one of the cost of the US dollar and the one of memory-CPU usage (generally to see quickly the memory usage without opening Resource Monitor or Task Manager).

Well, I'm not disabling mine, that's for sure. I only use one gadget and it's very important at the moment, plus I've always liked them anyway. Mine's an old one so hoping it will be alright.

I always considered them crap anyway. Never used them. Looks like I wasn't wrong.
Rainmeter all the way!

Guys missing monitoring gadgets, you can use CPUID HWMonitor for time being : http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

@TomSEA:

Exactly! The only thing that cat clock and inaccurate weather app did was slow down my windows startup even more...

I was never really crazy abou the gadgets, I did try some but found they only slowed things down. The larger issue is Microsoft offers a feature that many people use and their responce to a security issue is don't use the feature. I think they want people to use the Metro interface in Windows 8 and want to get rid of gadgets anyways, which is why they are saying don't use gadgets and why they are not giving additional information. I'm not really crazy about the direction Microsoft is going in general; they seem to be offering fewer choices and just telling users what they can/can't use. This is yet another reason I have been playing around with Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 LTS. I'm slowly learning it and can see it as a viable alternative to Windows, at least on the home front. My only real issue is gaming, which Windows does rule in. If only the gaming industry would start releasing Linux based games, then I'd be set.

There is a gadget Ive always used shows things like CPU, ram hd stats etc but weirdly also as built in radio streaming (out of context really) its called Computer Status and I love it

I have one gadget running, the weather gadget. I like it, I paid for it as part of Windows 7 and I expect a fix for any vulnerabilities so I can keep using it and any others that I so choose!

Not that I want to come off blaming Microsoft, I shouldn't have to worry about running the OS of my choice as is. I am sick of these scum bags that write the software that takes advantage of these vulnerabilities and would like to see stiffer penalties against them.

Gadgets, what are those?

I remove them from my OS install when I customize it; never cared about dynamic things on my desktop; I just use a blank back background to avoid distractions and minimize system resource consumption. If I want to see things, I'll load up apps specific for them, not a problem.

only gadget I use is the Windows CPU meter, which I tricked out to look like actual dash gauges. other than that I really don't use the desktop widgets.

Run! The paranoids are coming!

Tbh the were the gadget of my life...for the first 10 munutes then I got id of them and never used them again I dont get the use of them when you can alead see the charger of the battery internet connection time and date without them and the currency's just searchthem up on google .

Is it just me or do those people who say "My gadgets are very important to me" but dontpost this gadget that is so very important?

Last time I looked at those gadgets, I couldnt find anything that another program wouldnt take care of for me.

AIDA64

Common guys, list your gadgets so that we can find replacements for your "oh so important" gadgets, and get rid of this useless and annoying feature in Windows.

I disabled mine ages ago, Rainmeter FTW!

So this is really only a security problem if your using 3rd party gadgets not created by Microsoft correct? If you use Microsoft owned and created gadgets your safe? It sounds like it all boils down to whether or not you know just what gadget you are installing, where it came from and do you trust that developer.

"Useless and annoying" is an opinion, an opinion I don't share with you. I don't want you to find me an replacement for something that simply doesn't need replacing, It works fine as it is thanks.