Tuesday, February 15, 2011

How to Use Sidebar 32-Bit Mode in Windows 7 and Windows Vista 64-Bit Editions to Run Silverlight Gadgets

In 64-bit editions of Windows 7 and Windows Vista, the 64-bit Mode of Windows Sidebar auto-starts by default. That means the Sidebar Gadgets (Desktop Gadgets) that use Silverlight, do not run, as 64-bit edition of Silverlight isn’t available yet. For example, take the case of BBC News Gadget when run in Sidebar 64-bit Mode, indicates that it requires Microsoft Silverlight even though Silverlight is already installed.

This is one reason you may want to use the 32-bit Mode of Sidebar.

Running 32-bit Windows Sidebar at Startup

Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press {ENTER}

Navigate to the following key:

Double-click Sidebar and change the value from:

C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe /autoRun

to

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe /autoRun

Restart Windows.

This should start the x86 (32-bit) mode of Sidebar.exe, which you can verify using Task Manager.

And the BBC News Gadget should now work!

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