Desk Widgets

What Desk Widgets does

Nine widgets to choose from

At a Glance

Four tiles in one: the weather where you are, today’s date, the next sunrise or sunset, and a world clock.

Control Panel

Your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, brightness and volume bars you can drag, a microphone mute button, and your speaker and microphone. Click either one to switch device.

World Times

Two to five cities, one row each, with day and night shown around “now”. Great for family abroad or colleagues in another time zone.

Analog Clock

Your local time on a classic dial, with a ticking, smooth or hidden second hand.

Calendar

Today’s weekday, month and a big day number. It turns the page by itself at midnight.

Photo Card

One special photo with an optional caption, in a full, Polaroid or framed style, with an optional slow zoom.

Focus Timer

A ring that counts down 15, 25, 45 or 60 minutes, and keeps going even if you restart.

Quote

A new inspiring quote every day. Click for another.

Custom Quote

Your own words, in the same style. Click to edit.

Every widget comes in three looks: Dark, Light, or Vibrant, which shows your wallpaper softly blurred behind the card. They use very little memory, and they rest while your PC is locked.

Set it up in a minute

1. Download it

   Click the download button. You get one file, DeskWidgets.exe. There is nothing to install, and it adds itself to the Start menu the first time.

2. Double-click the file

   The Desk Widgets window opens, with the widgets grouped by type.

   See “Windows protected your PC”? Click More info, then Run anyway. Windows shows this for small apps from independent makers. It doesn’t mean something is wrong.

3. Put widgets on your desktop

   Drag a widget onto the desktop, or double-click it to drop it in the middle of the screen. Drag it to move it, and drag a corner to resize it.

   For World Times and At a Glance, type part of a city or country name to pick it. You can rename any city, for example “Mom” or “Office”.

4. That’s it

   Close the window: your widgets keep running. To have them back every time you turn on your PC, open Settings in the app and switch on Start with Windows.

Private by design

• No account, no tracking, no ads. Your settings stay on your PC.
• Only the weather goes online. At a Glance looks up the city you type once with the free Open-Meteo service, then sends only its map position every 15 minutes. Nothing else leaves your PC.
• Your photo is copied, not moved. Photo Card keeps its own copy, so deleting or moving the original doesn’t break it.

Want it on a USB stick? Download the portable version and unzip it anywhere. It keeps its settings in its own folder.

Removing it

1. Open the app, go to Settings and switch off Start with Windows.
2. Right-click the Desk Widgets icon next to the clock and choose to quit.
3. Delete DeskWidgets.exe. To remove your settings and photos too, type %AppData% into the File Explorer address bar and delete the DeskWidgets folder.