How to Enable Desktop Gadgets in Windows 10

Over the years, a firm such as Microsoft has made an effort to provide us with everything we need to work in the best way with one of its flagship products, Windows. This has evolved over time for decades to reach the current Windows 10, but leaving other much-loved versions on the way.

This is the case, for example, of Windows 7 or Windows XP, systems that were widely accepted and used at the time, but which are currently finished. What we mean by this is that they no longer receive official support from Redmond. This means that they no longer receive functional updates or security patches, with the risks that all this entails.

Enable Desktop Gadgets in Windows 10

But the two mentioned are not the only versions of Windows that we have left behind over the last decades. We can also mention another that was not so successful, but that contributed its grain of sand. For example, this is the case of Windows Vista, a version that did not have the expected success at first. But if Vista left us something that many still miss, those are the desktop widgets .

What are Windows desktop widgets or gadgets

These are software elements that we can no longer find natively in Windows 10, but that many still remember. Well, as we told you, these came from Microsoft to the aforementioned Windows Vista . For those of you who don’t remember them, we will tell you that here we are talking about small applications that were added to the Redmond operating system itself and that we could use on the desktop. These provide us with a series of additional utilities to the information that this section of the system already provides us and that were always in view.

In this way, at all times we had at our disposal useful data regarding the weather information, the time of the whole world, the calendar , the stock market, etc. In fact, thanks to these small software elements that we discussed, we directly had simple games, a photo viewer, or other utilities.

This is something that continued with the successful Windows 7, but with a slight change from Vista. And is that although these gadgets were still available, they were no longer by default. In fact, from that moment, in Windows 8 and Windows 10 these are no longer available, neither natively, nor optionally. The main reason for this disappearance was given by security issues. And it is that Microsoft at the time considered that these programs could become a clear focus of vulnerabilities, hence their complete elimination.

How to bring gadgets back to Windows 10

But its disappearance, both optional and native, does not mean that these elements of which we have spoken, have disappeared completely. It just means that we will have to use other methods to bring them back to Windows 10 , as we are going to show you below. And it is that although these small applications are no longer available by default, it is possible to enable them manually through external solutions .

In fact, there are several of which we can use at this time. Therefore, for all those who still miss these widgets that we have talked about, we will help you.

Install a complete widget pack with Gadgets Revived

First of all we are going to show you a free software that will allow you to bring back those gadgets we are talking about. In fact, it could be said that it largely respects the appearance and operation of the original gadgets that we found in Vista. Say that in order to bring these elements back to Windows 10, we can achieve it from this link .

Then, once we have them downloaded, we run the program in a conventional way and configure it so that, for example, its interface is in Spanish.

Gadgets Revived español

Well, a few seconds later, as we mentioned before, we will have the possibility to re-enable these elements in Windows 10. To do this, we just have to right-click on the desktop and take a look at the context menu. Here we will see that a new entry called Gadgets appears , so we only have to select it.

contextual Gadgets Revived

At that moment the program window will open as such, which will allow us to add the elements of this type that we need. We found a good number of them divided into several pages and belonging to a multitude of categories to navigate between.

Gadgets Revived

Select the widgets you want to use with Win7Gadgets

As we have just seen, the option that we have just talked about installs a good number of widgets on our computer , all of them available in Windows 10. But that is not the only option that we have at our disposal in this regard. And we also have the possibility to download and install only the gadgets that really interest us. This is something that we achieve from another of the third-party alternatives that we talked about before, Win7Gadgets.

You can access it from this link , where we find a good number of elements of this type. Of course, in this case they are separated by categories, so we will only have to choose the one that interests us at that time.

Win7Gadgets

Once we enter any of them, we find several proposals of the same type, but with different designs and functions. In this way we will have the opportunity to choose the one that interests us most in each case for download and installation .

relojes Win7Gadgets

Use Windows 10 widgets

Of course, something that we must also take into account is that in the latest versions of Windows 10, some of these elements integrated into the system have also arrived. Over time these have gradually grown in number, and perhaps they will continue to do so in the future. For those interested, we will tell you that they can be found included in the game bar of the operating system itself.

To access it, we only have to make use of the Win + G key combination. At that moment, the game bar to which we refer, and one of its sections called Widgets Menu, will appear on the screen.

Menú Widgets barra

By clicking here we will see a list with the widgets that Windows 10 presents us in this section so that we can see or pin those that interest us. Here we find them related to the performance of the PC in real time, the audio, the groups of games, etc.

Widgets barra juego