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Adam Kinney (a Microsoft developer) has developed a Vista sidebar gadget that can show you up to 5 Xbox Live friends. This is what the gadget looks like on my system:
To run this gadget you’ll need:
- Windows Vista
- Silverlight v1.0 installed
- The Xbox Live friend watch gadget itself (note: install Silverlight first)
- Xbox Live friends (although you can just add anyone)
The only problem I had getting this gadget working was related to my 64bit version of Vista. Since this gadget currently doesn’t support a 64bit operating systems (as it turned out) I had to set Vista’s sidebar application in 32bit mode. It’s easy to do though:
- In the System Tray right-click on the Sidebar icon and select Properties
- Uncheck the “Start Sidebar when Windows starts” option
- Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar
- Drag and hold Sidebar.exe over the start orb
- Then drag and hold it over All Programs
- And again (drag and hold) over startup
- Now drop it into startup
That’s it. Now I can keep an eye on Weefz’s gaming activities since she’s just bought a 360 Elite!
OMG, stalker! eek!
Works Great!
At last an xbox friends gadget that works!! Superb
What is the fun with only watching and not involving in the game?
It’s handy for me as my PC isn’t in the same room as the 360, so when I see people online I go join (in theory anyway!)
great gadget,only i have a few questions.
1. can you add this gadget to the side bar more than once allowing more
than 5 friends in theory to be shown
2. can/are the gamer tag details retained after a reboot.
3. is there anything specific needed to achieve the above
Hi Kevin,
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
Easy :-)
i only have one problem with this gadget and that is there is no refresh on it at all i added my self and the signed on to my xbox and nothing changed it still said i was offline?!? whats up with that?
Same problem here as xTNPx Wo encountered.
i have windows vista, installed silverlight, and downloaded the gadget, i even followed the steps on switching it to "32 bit mode" but it will not show the friends i enter into the list… is there anything else i need to do or i am doing wrong? please reply to DU3LMAUL3RS@yahoo.com
to nick, i had the same problem, and after doing some research, it seems that it is not yet compatible with silverlight 3.0, so your poocked if you have a new version of silverlight
It’s good. I can watch my friends if they are online. I can message them to play a game. Hope it will get more improvements.
Game
dang! Need to change from xp to vista now :D
I hope it works, the one I have now is rarely ever accurate.
I installed silverlight, then tried to add this to my sidebar. I keep getting a lil bubble that says to get silverlight. I also tried the remedy for 64bit vista & still get the same bubble! What’s up?