Windows Sidebar

Windows 98

A sidebar-like approach was included with Windows 98 (First Edition). It was HTML based and very different from the one later included with Windows NT 6.X.

Sideshow

Before Longhorn, during PDC 2001, Microsoft demonstrated Windows Sideshow, which was to be used alongside Windows 2000, ME, and XP. It was a sidebar where emails could be retreived, people can socialize, weather forecasts can be accessed, and so could traffic updates. One build of this program was released. It does work on Windows 95 and Windows 98 with a special fix, but it works on all operating systems up through Windows 8, but many of the tags don't work due to its old age. Some can be rejuvinated by reentering the code in the test apps located in the program's files.

This program has a bug by turning black when trying to change its appearence in operating systems newer than Windows XP.

This developing product was soon integrated with Longhorn. A video presentation of this program is avaliable on YouTube.

Early Longhorn

The Windows Sidebar was being tested in very early Longhorn builds, even the earliest being 3683. The sidebar began as running side by side in explorer.exe. With an analog clock, and a picture preview pane, it was slightly bare but it's typical for it to be that way in early builds. In build 3706, the taskbar was merged in with the sidebar, but was proved to be unreliable and was removed and put back into its original state. From the 3xxx to the 403x builds, the sidebar appearence was the same as the Plex theme and was automatically transparent in earlier builds without having Desktop Composition Engine running.

Later Longhorn Builds

Microsoft later scrapped the Plex theme and started with a new Slate theme. The sidebar was now black and could be easily turned transparent in Longhorn build 4074 by enabling the MILDesktop registry key. The sidebar did not exist in 64-bit builds, such as:

• Longhorn 4074 x64
• Longhorn 4083 x64

The last Longhorn build to contain the sidebar was Longhorn 4093. It has a glossy touch up of Slate but was mostly broken due to the unstableness of the build.

Omega-13 Reset

The Windows Sidebar is not shown in early reset builds until 5219. Windows Vista build 5219 is the first build after the reset to recieve the sidebar (after it leaked seperatly from the build itself and had given users the ability to download it) after complaints from beta testers. Builds 5048 and 5112 (Pre Beta and Beta) did not recieve a sidebar because Microsoft planned on not implementing it, but after complaints, they decided to recompile it and make it stabler and run it as a seperate application called SIDEBAR.EXE instead of running it with EXPLORER.EXE because that was what was causing memory leaks.

Vista RTM

Windows Vista was released with the sidebar which contained 10 widgets.

During Windows 7 Development

During the develoopment of Windows 7, Microsoft took a different approach. They removed the bar, and let the gadgets on the side now roam "freely" across the desktop without having to be on the actual sidebar. In early builds you could not align them perfectly side by side.

Windows 7 RTM and Windows 8

The Sidebar still runs as SIDEBAR.EXE but was modified to not contain the black bar. Widgets can be freely moved however and wherever around the desktop, though in this version of Windows only 9 gadgets are included.

Windows 8

So far, in all of the Windows 8 builds we have used, it contains the same SIDEBAR.EXE program and 8 gadgets. We do not know what it will be like in the Beta/RTM.