Does anyone use the Windows Sidebar? Adding/removing apps before making a cloned img

[Arkitech]

I just reloaded Vista after a nasty viral infection and I'm debating whether or not to keep the Windows Sidebar. It does'nt seem particularly useful, but maybe I'm missing something. Any of you guys use it for anything functional?

Edit:

For a guy who repairs PCs for a living I oddly enough never make images of my installs. Well after a viral infection yesterday that killed most of my productive hours I've finally decided to go ahead and make an image of my Vista install. I never used it before but I'm going to play around with Clonezilla to make my backup copy.

So far here are some of the apps I have installed:

Google Chrome
Mozilla Thunderbird
Microsoft Security Essentials
Adobe Reader X
Open Office
Keepass
Secunia PSI
FFDShow
Media Player Classic
VLC
Audacity
7Zip
QuickPar
Grabit
ObjectDock
Team Viewer
CD Burner XP


Apps I'll probably add later

Malwarebytes
Foobar (maybe)



What are some essential apps that you guys use?

 

[lxskllr]

That's one of my favorite features of Vista. I haven't used Windows in awhile, but on the primary page, I had and analog clock, calendar, weather, picture slideshow, Foobar control, Game server monitor, network traffic, and system load monitor that displayed temps also. The other page had a few amusements, but nothing essential. I like having information available at a glance.

 

[jhansman]

Oh, hell no. Just another Mac-like affectation that M$ felt they just had to put on the desktop to keep up with the eye candy contest. Completely useless, IMO.

 

[FishAk]

To your list I would add these free apps:

CCleaner
KeyTweak
Partition Wizard
HashMyFiles
GetFolderSize
SandBoxie
Ditto
ToggleHiddenFiles
TrueCrypt
Malwarebytes
Bulk Rename Utility
Duplicate File Finder
Teracopy
Daemon Tools Lite
Unetbootin
Everything
Agent Ransack (slower than Everything but can search file contents)

I would substitute:
CD Burner XP for ImgBurn
Adobe Reader X for SumatraPDF (security reasons)

I use the clock, calendar, and weather in the sidebar. I like having them at a glance.

I think you would be happier with Macrium Reflect over Clonezilla. It works great, is easy to use. It also allows you to mount an image to a drive letter, and view/copy individual files or directories straight out of the image file without a full recovery.

One thing about images is that they are relatively fragile. If they aren't original, have been moved or defragged, they become unreliable. That's not to say they won't work, but they may take several attempts, and they may not work at all. For this reason, it's best to place them in a dedicated partition for protection. Incidentally, Truecrypt can scramble and unscramble them with no effect to their reliability.