Windows 7 gadgets appear to be corrupted... FIXED

Okay, the new Windows 7 laptop was a necessity so please don't mock me lol
I am a Linux user, as one other person has asked I thought it prudent to say so, but I do sometimes flirt with the enemy, if only to keep up to date with what's going on in the world.

Anyways... Upon running my choice of AV/Firewall software on said new laptop (in this case it was AVG-full), my gadgets stopped working correctly.
The clock appeared black only and other gadgets did not appear at all, apart from the 'x' was still present to close them, and the little 'i' symbol.

Although not vital for the laptops purpose, I was slightly annoyed that a brand new laptop was malfunctioning in such an arrogant way (it is Windows... was I surprised?.... no...). So by way of the nature of the 'guild of geeks' (to which I am most certainly a member), I set about finding a solution.

So, here is a little fix around for it that I have sorted and figured I should share it to the world, as is the nature of things;

This erratic gadget behaviour is observed, if the XML registration is missing in the system, which is probably to do with the AV installation, somehow. I suspect others out there have experienced other methods of creating this problem, but that of course is not the issue here.

TO FIX THE PROBLEM USE THE FOLLOWING STEPS;

• Close Windows Sidebar.  To do so (Windows 7 remember), Press WinKey+R > type taskmgr  and press enter >  Processes  tab > select sidebar.exe > click  end process button.
• Open an elevated Command Prompt window. To do so, click Start, click  All Programs, click Accessories, right click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator. This will not work without the Elevated Command Prompt.
• In the Command Prompt window, type the following and press ENTER after each one:

regsvr32 msxml3.dll

regsvr32 scrrun.dll

regsvr32 jscript.dll

If the registration was successful, you'll see the message DllregisterServer has succeeded for each command executed. Open Windows Sidebar (sidebar.exe) and check if the problem has been resolved.

It sorted my problem out nicely, so it should for you too :)


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*Update

If for some reason the above does not work for you, there are two other things you can try; both of which you can find in the comments below...
However, and for your convenience, here is the direction for what has now become termed the 'L' trick;


Anonymous said...
"My solution was: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\
with pseudo-graphic number, you'll see it before zone number 0.
It seems this is a bug of Adobe flash player update, though I am not sure. The pseudo-graphic number they speak of before zone number 0 looks like a miniature upper case "L"."..just Delete it and thats it:) good luck".

So basically, go find this key in your PC registry (use google if you need to learn how), and delete the one called 'L'.
Please do be careful when exploring the depths of your registry. Almost anything can be deemed as critical to system operation and anything you remove that you don't know what it is, could seriously mess with your system! Ultimately it should be fine to remove said file, but I do have to offer the warning too, just to make sure that you remain vigilant. Windoze registry can be a very fickle beast to the untrained...
Good luck!

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Incidentally, my laptop spec;

64bit Dell 1545 with Win7-64 Premium

Pentium dual core 2.3Ghz

3Gb Ram, onboard GPU.




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