A Petty Blog

 I’m using Windows 7 and having trouble with my gadgets.

If that doesn’t sound familiar, then “move along, nothing to see here“.

I’ve had a problem a couple of times in the last few days.  My weather gadgets decide to be on top of everything else.  I cannot check the “always on top” option, and therefore cannot un-check it.  Once I thought changing the opacity knocked some sense into the gadget, but that didn’t work today, so who knows.

I consulted my Oracle, and found many other people asking this question, but precious few answers.   KeithjUK provides the only workaround I found in answer to a related question.

I found the fix.  On an “open” desktop (ie nothing else running):

Right-click, point at “View”, then Unselect “Show desktop gadgets”.   The gadgets disappear.
Right-click again, and turn then back on.   They behave themselves again … till next time.

It appears that simply showing the desktop (by using Win-D key, for example)  confuses the gadgets.

Now, here are some of the questions I asked or found.  This is an attempt to make the answer available to other poor seekers of knowledge:

• Windows 7 weather gadget always on top
• Windows 7 gadgets always on top after show desktop
• Windows Sidebar Gadgets - Stuck being on top after clicking Show desktop tab?
• Windows gadget to stay on top after “show desktop”
• “Show Desktop” command causes gadgets to be in an “always on top” state.