Desktop Gadget Gallery

Desktop Gadget Gallery is a component of Microsoft Windows. It contains several gadgets that can be placed on the desktop and show information such as weather, time, calendar or interactive content. It was introduced in early builds of Windows 7 and was last included in late builds of Windows 8 before being discontinued and removed from the operating system.

History
Desktop Gadget Gallery was first introduced in Windows 7 build 6471 as a replacement for Windows Sidebar, known simply as Gadget Gallery by this point, which contains several functionality updates; the most important being the ability to place gadgets anywhere on the desktop rather than just on a bar at one of the desktop's sides, which has been removed. Default gadgets from the Sidebar have also been kept, though some others were also removed, and they can be managed from the same UI as it. Gadgets, however, still rely on the Windows Sidebar platform, and as such the  process is still present.

Unlike Windows Sidebar, Desktop Gadget Gallery had a less turbulent development, and it received significantly less changes after its first appearance compared to its predecessor, being the most notable introduced in build 6780, which included gadgets no longer being shown by default, and the ability to snap gadgets to an invisible bar at the desktop's right side.

Discontinuation
While Desktop Gadget Gallery remained untouched for most of Windows 8's development, pre-RTM build 8438 removed this feature due to security risks, stating that "some gadgets could steal users' information secretly via vulnerabilities on the Sidebar platform". With this change, downloadable gadgets were removed from the official website, whose content was replaced with the reason above. Despite this feature not shipping on the RTM, there are third-party solutions that can port Desktop Gadget Gallery not only to Windows 8, but also to Windows 8.1 and all versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11, while there are other websites where existing Windows 7 PCs can still download gadgets from.

Gadgets list
This is a list of default gadgets available throughout Windows 7's development. Windows 8 builds with Desktop Gadget Gallery use the same set of gadgets from 7's RTM.