Windows Vista – Xbox Live Friend Watch Sidebar Gadget

Adam Kinney (a Microsoft developer) has developed a Vista sidebar gadget that can show you up to 5 Xbox Live friends. This is what the gadget looks like on my system:

To run this gadget you’ll need:

• Windows Vista
• Silverlight v1.0 installed
• The Xbox Live friend watch gadget itself (note: install Silverlight first)
• Xbox Live friends (although you can just add anyone)

The only problem I had getting this gadget working was related to my 64bit version of Vista. Since this gadget currently doesn’t support a 64bit operating systems (as it turned out) I had to set Vista’s sidebar application in 32bit mode. It’s easy to do though:

• In the System Tray right-click on the Sidebar icon and select Properties
• Uncheck the “Start Sidebar when Windows starts” option
• Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar
• Drag and hold Sidebar.exe over the start orb
• Then drag and hold it over All Programs
• And again (drag and hold) over startup
• Now drop it into startup

That’s it. Now I can keep an eye on Weefz’s gaming activities since she’s just bought a 360 Elite!

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