Why won't Vista Sidebar Gadget show up in Gadget Gallery?

Question

I'd like to create a sidebar gadget in Vista. I've followed this tutorial on how to create one to the letter. However, the gadget simply will not show up in the Gadget Gallery when I go to Add Gadgets in the sidebar.

I've tried resetting the sidebar, deleting the settings file next to the gadgets folder, making sure my xml file is stored as UTF-8, etc. Still nothing.

NOTE: To those looking to retag, this is programming-related. Please follow the link to see what I'm talking about. I'm trying to get the some verbatim tutorial code working.

Answer 1

When you are looking for your custom gadget in the Gadget Gallery check that the search box does not display 'Microsoft Corporation'.

alt text http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/6b6b3e75c7.png

This is the default and will only display Microsoft's gadgets, change this to 'All gadgets' and you should see your custom one appear:

Answer 2

You'll have to zip or cab your gadget and rename the extension to .gadget Then you can drop it in c:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsSidebar\Gadgets. That should make it available in the Gadget Gallery.

Answer 3

Did you put all your files in a subdirectory of %appdata%..\local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets? Putting the files in an archive isn’t required, it just extracts everything to that directory during installation.

If you created an archive with .gadget extension, make sure all files are in the root directory of that archive.

Answer 4

Make sure you replace ” with " if you copy the gadget.xml from the tutorial. Also make sure src="something.html" points to a valid html-page.

Answer 5

It seems that having a settings.htm file is mandatory since after adding one, my test worked.