One thing that Windows lacks is decent calendar. Active Desktop Calendar is a fully customizable calendar which features notes, tasks, alarms, and merges neatly into whatever desktop wallpaper you have.

You can even make it synchronize with your PDA via Outlook.

If you find the calendar is running slowly or slowing your system down, you can also revert to a text only version of the calendar. If you need hard copies of your important dates, there's also a very easy to use print option for calendar data.

Although it's not necessary, there's also a world clock screen saver that shows your computer's system time, plus five major time zones around the world.

Download Active Desktop Calendar 7.95 in Softonic

Thoosje Vista Sidebar's applications range from clock and calendar to more advanced options, like RSS feeds, network activity monitor and torrent search. These functions are chosen from a menu and then dragged wherever you want them on the sidebar. And don't let the name confuse you - Thoosje Vista Sidebar can be used on XP too.

The Thoosje Vista Sidebar gadgets all work well, but configuration options are limited. You can't choose the size of the icons, for example. It was also difficult to decipher when exactly Thoosje Vista Sidebar does appear, as it seems to minimize and maximize whenever it feels like it. Some of the gadgets can also be further customized, although on the day we tested, many of the links to skins etc. were broken.

Thoosje Vista Sidebar is perfect for sidebar freaks, but really doesn't cut it for the rest of us. All of the functions carried out by the sidebar can be performed more efficiently (and with more configuration options) by other tools, and the overall look of this windows sidebar is clunky and unappealing.

Dedicated sidebar fans will love Thoosje Vista Sidebar, but it will probably leave the rest of us cold.

Download Thoosje Vista Sidebar 3.1.0 in Softonic

The Google Desktop application allows users to search their desktop content quickly and easily. Praised for its ingenuity and criticised for its intrusiveness, Google Desktop brings the power of Google’s search engine technology to your PC.

After installing the application, you’ll have to give it some time to index the files on your PC, including emails, photos, chats, contacts and calendar events. Google Desktop will index the first 10,000 words in the first 100,000 documents on your PC. The application supports the majority of file types and you can decide which ones to index, or omit protected files, using the preferences menu.

In its latest version, which is compatible with Windows Vista, Google Desktop has been given a new transparent look, providing a pretty sleek feel to your PC. Your search results will appear in your browser (in the familiar Google web page format) and a small preview button allows you to view results without actually clicking on the corresponding link. Results are as precise as we’ve come to expect from Google searches, however we were slightly disappointed to learn that the application doesn’t offer logical 'OR' support or substring search. On another note, Google Desktop is not limited to your PC as you can cross index content from multiple machines and share some panel items with your friends.

Google Desktop is not only about search, though. Joining a marketplace already occupied by Apple’s Dashboard Widgets and Yahoo! Widgets, Google Desktop can be fitted with any number of little gadgets. These mini apps perform all kinds of functions, from fetching your mail to jotting down notes or checking up on your local weather. There are hundreds of gadgets to choose from to customize your desktop bar. Our personal favorites are: Google Translate, the Skype plug-in to check your credit and call your contacts, “Am I Blocked” to find out who’s blocked you on IM, Workspace to quickly move between tasks, System Stats to monitor your PC and Games, a selection of Flash games like Tetris and Moonlander.

When running, we found Google Desktop to use up around 30 MBs, but that can quickly increase if you add more gadgets to it. The application is also constantly re-indexing your files to incorporate your modifications and new elements. However you should rarely feel your PC slowing due to indexing.

When you’re dealing with Google, however, you know the main criticism will be about security. Because Google Desktop indexes all your documents, you’re basically opening up your PC and all your personal files to the Moutain View company. What some users fear is that Google could one day take advantage of that access or that a bug in the application would allow malicious users to infiltrate your PC and steal information.

While the intrusiveness of Google Desktop will give some users pause for thought on installing the app, Google Desktop is highly effective and simple to use. The gadgets you can add to its sidebar may not all be essential, but many of them are quite fun and original and let’s face it, the sidebar looks good. Give it a go if you think your PC is a mess and you need quick access to anything.

Download Google Desktop 5.9.911.3589 in Softonic

Yes, Windows already has its own system clock, right there on the bottom right corner of your interface. So, why would you want another clock?

The answer is that CrossGL Surface Clock is not just any clock. It's a fully scalable desktop clock that can be placed anywhere on your screen, rotated with total freedom and resized to any scale without losing quality. Plus, it doesn't require installation.

CrossGL Surface Clock looks really nice on the desktop and includes some configuration settings that let you customize it a bit more, like adding an animated background or making the clock transparent. Pity there are no skins included!

These settings are a bit hidden though; you have to hover your mouse on the clock's bottom-left corner until you see a button with a tick on it. The same applies to the resize, rotate and close buttons: they're all hidden in the clock's corners.

With CrossGL Surface Clock you'll enjoy a gorgeous, totally resizable desktop clock.

Download CrossGL Surface Clock 1.00 Beta in Softonic

Hated by some, loved by others, the truth is that the Vista sidebar can be quite handy – that is, if you find the right gadgets to use with it. But what if you use XP instead of Vista? The answer is Vista Rainbar V4, a Vista sidebar clone that has been especially designed for Windows XP.

Vista Rainbar V4 looks very similar to the original sidebar and includes a bunch of very varied gadgets to get you started: analog and digital clocks, sticky notes, calendar, mail checker, CPU meter, RSS feed reader, weather tool and many more. You can also choose between different skins to customize the sidebar appearance and make it suit your desktop wallpaper.

The gadgets in Vista Rainbar V4 are easy to install, though it may not seem that intuitive at first sight. Just open the gadget menu by clicking on the plus sign on top of the toolbar and click on the gadget you want to add. It will open right on the desktop, from where you can drag and drop it on the sidebar. The gadget menu includes a link to download more, but it didn't work for me.

Vista Rainbar V4 is easy to install and uninstall, but unfortunately the configuration of gadgets is generally not that easy. The main sidebar's settings are based on an INI file (which is not the easiest for a novice user), the weather gadget requires the weather.com ZIP code for your city and the email checked configuration simply doesn’t work. All of the other gadgets though work perfectly fine without any configuration requirements.

Vista Rainbar V4 is a very attractive, fully customizable Vista-style sidebar you can use without having to give up Windows XP.

Download Vista Rainbar V4 4.3 in Softonic

If Windows already features a system clock, what's the point of installing another one?

The answer is simple: ClocX is much more than just a simple replacement for the Windows standard clock. It features extra functionality such as an alarm system and can be customized with literally hundreds of different skins. ClocX can be configured to stay on top of other apps or be pinned to desktop, providing you with a nicer and more comfortable way to check time.

As stated before, ClocX includes a handful of skins to change the clock's appearance, although many of them are simple color variations of the same skin. Other visual tweakings are transparency and size. The alarm tool is perfect for setting up small reminders and can even be programmed to trigger an action like playing audio o video, launching an application or shutting down the PC. The program also features a calendar but this one doesn't have support for planning tasks.

Finally, Clocx will apparently support external plug-ins but this feature is unfortunately still under development, as you can tell from the program's configuration menu.

A fully customizable clock with interesting extra features, although not as developed as they should be.

Download ClocX 1.5 Beta 2 Full in Softonic

If you’ve had enough bad experiences upgrading your Microsoft products, you’re too poor to upgrade to Vista or you just refuse on principle, you can always customise Windows XP to make it look like Vista. The Windows Vista customisation pack gives you all the flashy features of Vista without having to shell-out a few hundred dollars for the original. It’s certainly proved a hit with Softonic users so far who have made this pack one of the site’s most popular downloads.

The pack includes a booty of Vista features including transparency of the windows, 3D Vista style icons, mouse cursors, boot screen, login screen, and a whole host of Vista themes to name a few. After installing the pack, you’ll be asked to restart, when you’ll find that your system has been through an impressive transformation although the fact that Windows Vista isn’t actually that radically different from XP, shouldn’t be held against this pack.

Amongst the major differences you will notice are some jazzy changes to your systems icons, skins and toolbars as well as new enhancements to your desktop such as a dock bar or if you prefer, a totally different system tray clock. Transfer file progress dialogs are transformed with swanky new 3D graphics and the sounds scheme has been beefed up to blow you out of your chair. Microsoft certainly spent lots of time designing these features. It was recently reported that they spent a year and a half just coming up with the start-up music alone.

Other changes include Windows Media Player which also receives a facelift although nothing worth getting excited about. The colours have been changed to a metallic-blue and the drop down menus have been replaced by an invisible menu which pops up when the mouse is waved over it. However, this feature actually becomes increasingly annoying with regular use and is best deactivated.

Whilst initially impressive, after a while these changes can cause problems. Users have reported that the new schemes not only slows down their PC’s but also cause it to crash randomly. It can also be a pain whenever there’s a problem with your PC. Since you are running a somewhat modified version of XP, normal troubleshooting guides may not work. You’ll subsequently have to uninstall the pack to make sure that it isn’t causing the problem. Fortunately however, the pack comes with an uninstaller that makes reverting back to XP simple although in time honoured Windows style, you’ll have to restart the computer.

For anyone who doesn’t add or remove programs regularly, we’d recommend this pack as it does an impressive job at emulating the $200+ Vista look. However, for those that make regular changes to their PC, the pack can end up being more hassle than its worth as the changes made can conflict with interfaces of other programs.

Download Vista Customization Pack 3.6 in Softonic

Desktop Calendar XP is a simple and cost effective way of beautifying the calendar on your desktop. It is a lightweight tool which will not clobber your system and its interface is very easy on the eye. The calendar covers two hundred years. It meets all your needs without much difficulty in setup or maintenance. It enhances the functionality of your calendar as it comes with a beautiful Real-time Desktop Clock and other useful inbuilt utilities such as MP3 Player, Wallpaper Manager, System Date & Time Changer, Date Calculator, Alarm, etc.

It has also a Talking Buddy which will give some fun in the Desktop. Desktop Calendar XP comes with an Image Pack containing twelve beautiful images. That is not all. There are about 90+ Image Packs (90 x 12 = 1080 pictures) are available for download in the web site. You can install and see all these Image Packs in the Premium Edition. If you have a Premium Edition, you can download 90+ Image Packs, ask for image packs on special themes or you can add your own pictures to the Calendar.

Features at a glance :

• Calendar for 200 years
• Stylish Skins
• Real-time Desktop Clock
• Feature-rich Wallpaper Manager
• Mini Desktop Calendar
• Date Calculator
• System Date & Time Changer
• MP3 Player
• Year Overview
• Easy access from the System Tray
• Talking Buddy
• Automatically changing Images
• Downloadable Image Packs

Download Desktop Calendar XP 5.05 in Softonic

Some time ago, Microsoft Windows XP was replaced by Vista. The new operating system brought about a bevy of changes, including a revamped desktop environment, designed not only to look good, but also to improve your productivity. One of the key new features was a sidebar, which replicates the dashboard in OS X and allows you easy access to certain tools, such as news, web searching and your digital photos.

If you haven’t got the money (or indeed, the inclination) to upgrade to Vista, then you can recreate the sidebar with Vista Sidebar XP. Despite a rather strange installation process, which fails to provide an auto-run function, the app can be set up and configured pretty quickly and comes with four useful preset ‘widgets’. The Vista Sidebar XP gadgets are a search function, image preview window, RSS feed and elegant analogue clock.

Visually, all the Vista Sidebar XP gadgets are pretty faithful to the Vista sidebar, although they lack the customization options that you get with Vista. For instance, Vista Sidebar XP's image tool doesn’t allow you to set the folder from which to display pictures, merely picking photos at random from your hard drive.

All the Vista Sidebar XP tools are locked within a transparent bar that runs down the right-hand side of your desktop, which gets annoying after a while as there’s no way to minimize it and it ends up squashing any application window you open.

Despite being a bit limited, Vista Sidebar XP represents an accurate taste of the instant-access functions you can expect in Vista.

Download Vista Sidebar XP 1.0 in Softonic