Windows Vista Forum / General Technical / Vista Technical / Sidebar disappeared / Latest Posts

RE: Sidebar disappeared

Jason — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:34:53 GMT

When your pc boots up run the task manager and look at your process(s) see if you can see if sidebar is already running. I am guessing it will appear in there, hit "end process" on it and then go back and try to re-launch it using the search box described above. I have a similar problem with WMP doing this. I will launch it, and it loads something but nothing appears. I go to my process(s) and I see it in there, so I end it. Then when I try to launch WMP it will actually come up.

RE: Sidebar disappeared

WAW8 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:26:54 GMT

Huh? You typed "sidebar" and it ran a scan? I type "sidebar" and it launches the sidebar!

I take it you tried to do a file system repair and it failed, too?

There's only two ways I know to restore system-related functionality:
1) Go into Control Panel, Programs and Features. Select "Turn Windows Features on or off", select the feature and click OK. This only works if the feature you want is in the list.
2) Force Vista to restore the system files to their original state. This is essentially the same as the System File Checker (SFC) feature in XP, and is documented in the pinned post about restoring Windows fonts. But unfortunately, it effectively removes the Windows Updates you've done, and (I believe) it also requires a Vista DVD to use to re-extract the system files from the image files.

Barring those, I know of no other way to restore Vista features.

RE: Sidebar disappeared

mschaef6 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:16:00 GMT

Hey, I tried doing this. It said that 99% of the scan was completed, they found corrupt files but couldn't fix them. I restarted my computer and the sidebar still doesn't work. Thanks though!

RE: Sidebar disappeared

WAW8 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:07:27 GMT

Open a command window and type "sidebar" or "sidebar.exe". It should launch Vista sidebar, and then down in the System Tray, there is an icon you can click to launch a panel that will allow you to set the properties, including "Start Sidebar when Windows starts".

If you get a message, file not found, you will have to restore your Vista system files. There is a "pinned" post on how to do that --under Restoring Fonts.

Sidebar disappeared

mschaef6 — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:15:21 GMT

Hi all,

About a month ago, I noticed that my Windows Sidebar no longer appeared. I tried restarting my computer several times to no avail. I go to my programs and click the Windows Sidebar, and an icon shows up in the system tray. Now, the weird part...when I hover the mouse over the icon in the system tray, it disappears. I can repeat this over and over, and each time it disappears when the mouse hovers over it.

Also, when I restart my computer, two or three of the sidebar icons appear in the system tray. They all disappear when my mouse hovers over them.

I didn't really try to fix anything for a while, but now that I'm back at school I've noticed that I used it quite a bit and would like it back. If anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate any help.

Thank you!