Yes, this info may be a bit dated, but as it may be helpful to someone who reads my blogs, it doesn’t hurt to post it.
One thing I really liked about Vista was its Notes gadget app. The Sticky notes in Windows 7 is nice, but I don’t care to have a bunch of sticky notes literally all over my desktop. I recently stumbled over someone who was able to repackage the Vista Notes gadget for installation and use with Windows 7.
But first — there’s a little trick to getting it installed on your Windows 7 system. And before we can install it, we need to tell Windows to display file extensions (like .doc, .zip, etc.). And here’s how you do that:
Click on Windows Start icon –> Computer –> Organize –> Folder & Search Options. Click on the View tab, and then UNcheck the ‘Hide extensions for known file types’ options. Then close those windows.
Now, click on the link below to download the zip file, and click to ‘Save As’ and save the file to your favorite folder – but don’t open the save file yet!
Download Notes Gadget for Windows 7
Now, here come’s the trick!
After saving the zip file, you should have options to either ‘Open’ or ‘Open Folder’. Click on the ‘Open Folder’ option.
This will open up a Windows Explorer window, with the Notes.zip file highlighted. Right click on the file, click on the Rename option, and rename the file from Notes.zip to Notes.gadget. You will get a warning about changing file extensions, but click Yes to proceed.
Once you’ve renamed it, double-click on the Notes.gadget file, and then click on the Install button. You will now have the Vista version of Sticky Notes on your desktop.
Finally here’s a nice one page Dummies Guide to Using Vista Notes!