Microsoft Gadgets

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Microsoft Gadgets" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Microsoft Gadgets are lightweight single-purpose applications, or software widgets, that can sit on a Microsoft Windows user's computer desktop, or are hosted on a web page. According to Microsoft, it will be possible for the different types of gadgets to run on different environments without modification, but this is currently not the case.

The gadgets and the Windows desktop Sidebar were a hallmark feature in Windows Vista and Windows 7 editions of the operating system. Subsequently, Microsoft deemed them to be security vulnerabilities and discontinued developing and providing Microsoft Gadgets, which were no longer available by the time Windows 8 and 10 rolled out. Independent third party programs providing similar functionality, such as Rainmeter, continue to be developed and provided for later versions of Windows.