  The first screenshot was one of the first ones that ever appeared on the internet while the second one is approx. from Q1 2004. Both featured the Vista Sidebar: A kind of additional start menu with quick access to numerous information (e.g. weather, e-mail, help etc.)...well, with this feature officially axed some users feel a great deal of disappointment - especially since a lot of folks out here seem to be fond of the sidebar. Fortunately, some developers decided to recreate the sidebar with great success: The Desktopsidebar is not only a great program, its community developed dozens of plug-ins and skins to make it look and feel more appealing: You can not only access system functions (like through an integrated Media Player) pretty easy but also gain information like recent weather reports, stock news or your system resources. Follow the next steps to install and configure the Desktop Sidebar properly: 1. Download the Desktop Sidebar here and install it! And dont worry, you dont need to download 25 plug-ins in order to use Sidebar - it comes with more than a dozen installed and pretty useful plug-ins already.  2. On first start you will see the preinstalled plug-ins: Click or mouse-over (e.g.) on the stock news. A new window with detailed information appears. Most plug-ins of the Desktop Sidebar will work like that. To change the appearance and the plug-ins, right-click on the Sidebar and click Options and then Appearance. You can choose from several preinstalled skins, but we recommand you visit the the official skin page by clicking on Download more skins.  3. When Desktop Sidebar Fileforum has loaded, enter Vista to find some suitable Vista Skins that match your current visual style. Simply double-click on the packages and the skin automatically applies! There is no real sense in explaining the whole program to you because the developers of Desktop Sidebar have established a great community with dozens of articles, plug-in descriptions and troubleshooting posts. Visit it at http://www.desktopsidebar.com. | 
