I am looking to use the Windows 7 beta's sidebar in Server 2008 R2 beta... I have tried copying the sidebar directory from a win7 install to the 2008r2 install and doing the same register of the exe plus the two dlls... I have had zero luck starting it... however, I CAN install the sidebar from vista...

I've also exported the registry for the sidebar folder on win7 and imported it on the 2008r2 box...

Does anyone know how to get the win7 sidebar working in 2008r2?

Thanks in advance!

I thought they removed the sidebar from the next OS, but just left the gadgets in?

You can use the automatic desktop-convert program developed for WS2008. It's here somewhere.

I was asking if anyone has the windows 7 "sidebar" working, as the windows 7 sidebar doesn't have a sidebar, it just has floating gadgets...

In the prog files folder, there is still a sidebar folder, when it a run, the gadgets show up....

I'd like to get the win7 sidebar working in 2008 r2 beta....

NO you CANNOT. This forum section is for Server 2008 R2, which is based on Windows 7. Not Windows 6 (Vista). Doing that could possibly break the system, as the DWM/Aero service has had many changes.


In regards to the main question gleep52, I just recently installed 2008 R2 and as soon as I get my workspace and system all installed, the first thing I will be working on is exactly this

Just FYI... I forcefully did a LOT of tricks to get the "sidebar" directory from a windows 7 install to work on 2008 r2... so far the only luck I had was NOT bluescreening and still being able to restart - even though no gadgets would work - the sidebar.exe was running in task manager. That was as far as I got. For now I went back to using vista's sidebar which works fine, just not as cool... FYI - it DOES break the OS and the easiest fix I've found is running SFC /scannow and it seems to clear it all up... thankfully that godsend is still fully functional in the beta. yay!

JonusC I'm excited that you are making the change. I can't believe more people aren't using 2008 R2 beta... it's just wonderful and amazing all around. Even Microsoft is hosting all of it's public servers with 2008 R2 beta to prove their trust in their own product.

FYI - SOME of the win converter program that (SAWO?) wrote actually still works in 2008 r2 beta... just not all of it. AND you have to run it with admin rights or else none of it works. *shrugs* no biggie.

Yeah, I don't personally use Sidebar (Vista one) but it's still my #1 thing to get the new one for Windows 7 working in our Server! I'm sure there are just some deeply-nested registry keys needed, I will have to Proccess Monitor the Sidebar.exe startup from Windows 7 and sort through it all, cross checking with 2008 R2 registry =)

Yeah, Windows 7 family is extremely impressive for a beta. I've noticed that Internet Explorer crashes occassionally but.... it's so awesome, it automatically recovers the tabs! Apart from that, i've noticed a strange thing when you create a New Folder or New Text File - If you start typing in the name straight away after creation (very quickly) it starts to type in as usual, but then it resets back to "New Folder" or whatever after a second... only does it once, and It's a really wierd bug! But yeah, minor annoyance - I just gotta slow down a little

And yeah, I will believe that some of the things in Sawo's converter do work. I havn't tried it (I do everything manually) but there are still a lot of similarities in Windows 7 Vs Windows 6. The only concern I was expressing was just the simple "using an older windows' files on a newer OS" and I don't recommend it. When somebody does this kind of hack, we call these kinds of computers a "frankenbuild" haha and techies generally stay away from these (and wont help you fix your problem if something goes wrong). If you know what i mean.

Anyway, yeah. Will take a look at the Sidebar soon.

Any luck/time for this project yet?

Bumpity-bump-bump

I'm completely stuck on this. My #1 priority is to try and get Superfetch service into Server 2008, and i'm having problem with that too.

I've never tried this kind of thing on a Beta OS, not to mention when I looked at this stuff on Vista/2008 R1 I had some established resources already on the net, from here and NeoWin for example, and i've also moved to a x64 OS for the first time and am still getting my grips on the internal differences between Vista x86 and Seven x64, mainly the registry.

A lot of things have changed in seven, many registry keys that worked in XP and Vista no longer work in Seven and it sucks. There's so many little things I need to work out.... =\

Anyway, yeah. I havn't given up.