First off, this is not a dupe of this question: Windows 7 - gadgets disappeared
My Gadgets disappeared from my desktop. When I right-click on the desktop and then Gadgets to attempt to bring them back, nothing happens. I can't even select any Gadget options under Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization. Doing so results in nothing happening yet again. I just noticed this a few days ago and do not know what changes I could have made that would cause this to happen.
Try to open task-manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and then click on "File -> Run new Task" and add "sidebar.exe" and then see what happens. If your gadgets return to normal or rather try that .bat file from Windows 7 - gadgets disappeared from Kyle's answer, as that .bat file can recover each and every gadget files to normal.
I solved the problem for me by killing the sidebar.exe process. After this, selecting "Gadgets" from the desktop right-click menu restored the gadgets.
