Apr
10
Multiple instances of the Sidebar.exe in Vista
Filed Under Vista
I was looking through the Task Manager on my Vista desktop when I noticed two “sidebar.exe” instances. Now of course I do not have two visible instances and there isn’t another user logged into the system, as the screenshot clearly indicates both sidebar.exe instances are running under my user account.
I went ahead and killed the one that was using the least memory.
It reports that the MSN Weather gadget is has some sort of problem. What is strange is that none of the other gadgets I have running show up in this list and once this “second” sidebar is destroyed the other sidebar is still up and running as well as its gadgets.
As soon as I add the MSN Weather gadget again, a new instance of the sidebar pops up.
So if you have two or more instances of the sidebar running make sure it’s not a bad gadget.
MSN Weather Gadget isn’t the only one that forces another instance of sidebar to start. Other poorly written gadgets such as DVue, NetMon etc., do the same.
The only option seems to be to not use the offending gadgets.
thenxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It’s not that they’re poorly written or bad gadgets, any third-party gadget will run in that second instance. It’s like that by design and completely normal.