The full history of Windows widgets, from 1997 to today
by thunderbong on 2/4/2026, 6:22:58 AM
https://xakpc.dev/windows-widgets/history/
Comments
by: lordkrandel
The answer is still the same. Don't they get the lesson? People don't want generic "weather" information if they're NOT going out, stock information if they don't invest, inbox headers in a 200px space where a notifications number could suffice, events in town when they are going to work. It's not they HAVE to open an app to get forcefed ads. It's that they WANT to need an app to get ads. Otherwise there's no need to clutter up the empty "desk" metaphore THEY created, with litter.
2/4/2026, 6:55:45 AM
by: KnuthIsGod
Widgets seem designed by the great unwashed, for the great unwashed.<p>When I need to use Windows, I use Windows Server in Desktop mode, just to escape the ads and widgets and rubbish that the consumer version insists on displaying.
2/4/2026, 7:47:04 AM
by: galaxyLogic
How about AI-generated widgets? I just tell AI what I want to see in a widget and it creates it?<p>Maybe simply "Show news about this topic"?
2/4/2026, 8:19:35 AM
by: _giuseppe_
I miss the company that used to do this: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwf0EZ50KUY" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwf0EZ50KUY</a><p>I remember installing Windows 98 and it would play an intro ad video to their products and games. Short clips that briskly walk you through them, nothing too crazy just to show you stuff they had. They had a way of welcoming without being over the top. Encarta on its own with the games it had embedded in there was amazing.<p>I don’t know what happened but man did we collectively fuck computers up somewhere along the way. We hardly dream anymore but maybe that’s just me getting old idk.
2/4/2026, 7:09:27 AM
by: russellbeattie
Widgets always seems like a cool idea. Tons of helpful little utility apps that are quick and easy for users to view or access and developers to create. Seems great, right?<p>Then everyone realizes there are only a handful of things that are actually useful and worth the screen space. Clock, calendar, weather, stocks. Maybe one or two more like todo list, post-it note, battery level, search bar, alerts, messages. That's about all I can think of.<p>From DOS PCs to smart phones, the idea is resurrected again every few years. A company will decide widgets are an awesome idea, create an over-developed "open" widget platform, excitedly add it to their UI, only to later decide that maintaining it isn't worth the effort and it quietly goes away. Then a few years later the cycle starts again with better widgets this time! And so it goes.<p>At this point it seems like it needs to be some sort of fundamental law of computing: Any device with a GUI will inevitably have some sort of widget capability that is added, removed, redesigned and added again at least once during its lifetime.
2/4/2026, 7:42:37 AM
by: dartharva
Just here to appreciate this article's clear and pleasant layout.
2/4/2026, 7:35:42 AM
by: sublinear
While it is the original title, it's clickbait.<p>No platform has ever "killed" off widgets, and users love them as long as there's a good variety of high quality ones available.<p>The first thing I always do with a new phone is make sure I have my preferred widgets for weather, email, maps, calendar, and to-do. As long as they stay in the periphery providing ambient information and the occasional interaction, being without them is almost unthinkable.<p>Maybe the only slight improvement in decades has been the smartwatch.
2/4/2026, 7:28:25 AM
by: jauntywundrkind
Because widgets are amazing & we are all just quietly hoping for a good breakaway easy travelling widget thing.
2/4/2026, 7:07:14 AM