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windows 7 gadgets disappear or display incorrectly after IE 11 upgrade

Anonymous
2013-11-27T16:07:14+00:00

After an upgrade to IE 11 my clock gadget on the Windows 7 display disappeared. The calendar displayed correctly but my weather gadgets only displayed in pink letters with no graphical background.

After many days of searching the internet, I found the solution so I thought I would post it here since Microsoft should be watching the site and may want to fix the problem. Also it was very hard to find the solution and it needs to be shared.

The correct solution was posted on the ghacks.net website by Martin Brinkman, a reviewer of the new  IE 11 back on November 18 of 2013.

Link is posted below unless the webmaster removes it:

http://www.ghacks.net/2013/11/18/fix-gadget-display-issues-ie11-installation-windows-7/

Apparently IE 11 was tested on Windows 7 only on the standard DPI setting and it does not affect the gadgets at that setting. However, for many of us who have set the display DPI to medium (125%) or large (150%) it has drastic effects. When the clock disappeared, I tried adding it again and again with different recent programs removed. Each of the clocks was actually there but was just not displayed. After finding the solution and changing back to DPI of 100%, all of the clocks showed up again and my weather gadgets displayed properly.

I hope this helps others with this problem. I suspect there are many of you out there.

My next solution is to roll back to IE 10 and see if I can use DPI medium (125%) without having the gadgets disappear. I don't know if the upgrade to IE 11 has permanently affected my display or not. I will post results later.

I hope MS engineers are monitoring this website.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-10-16T08:54:45+00:00

    Maybe a little late, but I have the final solution for this problem. For those gadgets which don't show up at 125% or 150%, you have to change the gadget.xml file and set the autoscaleDPI to false (default is true).

     <autoscaleDPI><!--_locComment_text="{Locked}"-->false</autoscaleDPI>

    E.g. for the clock gadget you can find gadget.xml at: C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets\Clock.Gadget\en-US. Note that default you're not allowed to change this file, because it is owned by trustedInstaller. You have to take ownership of this file and set full control. See this link for how to do that: http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/windows-7-how-to-delete-files-protected-by-trustedinstaller/

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-27T16:38:09+00:00

    Here is an update on fixes to this problem.

    I successfully rolled back to IE 10 by uninstalling the IE 11 update.

    After a reboot and much waiting while Windows recompiled the changes, I was back up with IE 10 again.

    I then changed my display back to DPI medium (125%) and everything works like normal. I did have to rearrange my gadgets due to their larger size, but after that I was back to normal.

    Be sure to bring up IE 10, click on the tools cog on the top right of the screen and select "About Internet Explorer" and uncheck the box which says "Install new versions automatically".

    Now wait for a newer version of IE 11 that has fixed this problem.

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  3. LemP 74,945 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2013-12-02T23:52:04+00:00

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-12-02T23:37:19+00:00

    So Ganesh,

    Does Microsoft have a fix lined up for this glitch or will they just let us roll with it? Do you have someone up the engineering line to which you can  pass on the information?

    I thought originally that this may have been due to Nvidia drivers but the identical thing happened on 3 different computers of mine, all with Windows 7, 2 with Nvidia drivers and one with Radeon.

    Hope you can convince your bosses it is worth fixing!

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-11-29T08:50:15+00:00

    Hi,

    Thank you for  sharing the information with us, this would help others if they come across same issue.

    Please do let us know if you need any help with Windows, we're here to help you.

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