I disabled gadgets in W7 after MS recommended it. How risky do you feel they are?

Since then (seems like perhaps a year ago or so) I often become aware of one that I'll muse "I think I'd like that!"

 

IMO gadgets are as un/safe as any other program. You can use gadgets if you like them and they don't contain any known vulnerability.

Here is a link to MS security guidance when using gadgets: http://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/gadgets.aspx
Here is a link to security advisory: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/advisory/2719662
You can also disable whole windows gadget platform: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3255/disable-sidebar-desktop-gadgets-on-windows-7/

I have disabled the whole platform, because I don't need this functionality.

 

Thank you!

 

they totally are gone from Windows 8.

i guess Microsoft felt they were not worth the risk.

 

the gadget platform gets also disabled in W7, when you upgrade to IE11.

 

So why did they put it in 7 (and perhaps Vista too, not sure ) if it's as risky as they are saying? People at Microsoft must be more than smart enough to know it before implementing certain features.

But the settings are still there. Guys at Microsoft seem to be quite lazy, lol.

 

Not worth the risk or not worth the resources? They were pretty system intensive in Vista.

 

It doesn't surprise me since the whole Metro paradigm is for every app to run in fullscreen. (Weather - fullscreen, calendar - fullscreen, etc.) Gadgets are contrary to that vision, as they are meant to take up part of the screen and run alongside other applications.

But, I think it's mostly because they just never caught on.

 

I've never lost it. Maybe just a bug?

 

I've been using a CPU and Network Monitor gadgets for several years now and find them indispensible. To me, their benefits outweigh the negatives. (I have uninstalled every other gadget that came by default with Windows)

As long as you are aware of the risks and have measures in place – I don't consider using them a problem.

 

they are still working for me, never went away...I actually like them

 

@Krysis: I've used similar gadgets in the past, but tray icons works better for mointoring your system in my opinion. Especially considering their resource usage,

Currently I use Process Explorer with a admin-privilege startup scheduled task. Gives me more icons like Disk and Netwok, otherwise you only have I/O instead.

Maybe the best use for gadgets would be something like a picture frame, website monitor, or detailed weather.

 

I've tried the Tray icons but they only show limited info - Eg, for cpu - only my 2 core temps can be displayed. Plus, the tiny readings don't have the visual impact of the CPU meter. In addition, the meter displays realtime RAM usage. (I can see at a glance if some process is chewing up my memory – and check it out)

I have a prepaid mobile broadband service – so my Network meter provides a realtime readout of data usage during a session. ( I can check via my internet connection manager – but this is painfully slow!) Another benefit is that I can see if a process is accessing the net – and verify that it is supposed to!
Resource usage of the meters on my laptop is quite minimal, so no drama there!

 

yes, i like and use the gadgets also. i have 3 computers, on two of them (x86, x64) the gadget platform was disabled after the IE11 upgrade. on one computer (x86) it still works. actually, the web is full of mixed feedback about this issue, most of the users having problems after IE11 upgrade.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/gadgets

 

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2182719&postcount=9

 

What about running the sidebar/gadgets on Sandboxie?

 

I just updated my All CPU Meter to the new version which now shows the pagefile. i had mine set to a min and max of 500mg and it was using all of it so i increased the size to 1GB and now it uses about 700MB of it. Maybe i should put the pagefile on my RAMDisk.

 

I'd disable the pagefile before using up RAM for it.

 

You should put Pagefile on RamDisk only if you use 32 bit system and have more than 4 GB of RAM installed. In that case you can use inaccessible ram for RamDisk and put Pagefile on it. Otherwise don't use Ram for Pagefile.

Regards, hqsec

 

Putting swap in a RAM disk only makes sense if the RAM disk is compressed (like zram on Linux). Otherwise it will just waste memory.

 

I have 8GB of Memory i just don't want the Pagefile working The HD to Death.

 

If you have let's say 8GB of RAM and use 32 bit system you can use non-addressable RAM (above 4 GB) and put RamDisk on it. In that case you are not wasting your memory, since system can never use it. In that case using Ramdisk for Pagefile is logical. More info here: http://www.megaleecher.net/RAMDisk#axzz2pwVu9RKa

Regards, hqsec

 

Then disable it, not that it'll work your HD to death in the first place.

 

@hqsec: Not sure how that's supposed to work, unaddressable memory is... unaddressable. Only way I could see that working would be if the memory is in fact addressable, but the kernel neglects to make it available for whatever reason, and the RAM disk driver can bypass that restriction.

Anyway, fast swap space != extra memory. Physical RAM is used for disk cache, but swap space is not used that way on most OSes, no matter how fast it is. Having more RAM will make your computer faster, because more disk reads can be cached. Having more swap than you need will probably not do anything.

@J_L: maybe Dragon1952 has an SSD? I don't know how Windows works for SSDs, but all versions of Windows NT love to use the swap file in my experience.

I'm not sure how safe it is to turn off swap on Windows. There's no OOM killer, but you might run into memory fragmentation problems - i.e. not all memory is used, but there's not enough contiguous free memory for allocations to succeed. In that case, not having a swap file might make it difficult for Windows to free up space, resulting in "bogus" OOM conditions and programs failing.

 

I believe that driver is using PAE to access memory space that would otherwise go to waste. I've used Gavotte Ramdisk this way with no problems. Some other Ramdisk tools also enable this option and some of them only in paid version. I know that Ram is not the same as Pagefile, but since I have unused memory I prefer to have Pagefile there instead on my SSD.

Regards, hqsec