I’ve written about Windows Gadgets before. I like ’em. I use ’em and they’re almost gone!

With the latest “optional” update to Windows 7, the desktop Gadgets disappear. Missing. Vacated. Apparently one of those optional updates served to remove the Gadgets. It’s been a long, slow demise.

As I wrote in that post nearly two years ago, I found the Gadgets to be useful. I still look on my PC’s screen where the clock gadget once appeared. It’s gone! And I was shocked.

My first thought was to obtain a Gadget replacement program. That thought lasted about two microseconds.

The main reason Microsoft is suppressing the Gadgets is security. A Gadget can fetch information from the Internet with pretty much no filter. That means a nefarious Gadget can bring all sorts of unwelcome and uninvited right into your PC. That’s probably not what you want.

A replacement program would be worse: Say some evil software developer creates a Gadget host that basically installs spyware and other malware on your computer. That’s not what you want.

Microsoft isn’t planning any Gadget successor, either. They’ve closed the door.

If you want to re-instate the Gadgets after the update, then you try heeding the advice from the Windows Club website here: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/fix-desktop-gadgets-not-working-windows-7. That’s how I got the gadgets back on my Windows 7 machine. I don’t know which specific trick worked because I tried a few of them before I restarted the machine.

The only gadgets I use that work are the clock and the calendar, which are really the same gadget, but two different views. I find that big clock handy. Other gadgets I’ve used have lost their functionality; the servers that provided the data are offline.

Of course, if you apply the update and you don’t miss the gadgets, then great! They were fun while they lasted, but I understand why Microsoft wants to get rid of them.