windows 7 weather gadget cannot connect to service

Well I went and did it and tried to mess around with the gadget.  Now I am stuck on New York and no other location can be found.  Tried numerous "fixes" but nothing works.  Oh well should have left well enough alone.

Try removing the read only access. Then turn off the gadget platform, reboot and turn it back on. 

1. Turn the "Windows Gadget Platform" off .

  a.  To do this, open Control Panel  (found on the menu when you select START)

  b.  Select "Programs and Features". On the "Programs and Features" you will see three links on the upper left side. Select "Turn Windows features on or off".

    Note: It can take a few minutes or longer for the window to populate. Be patient.

  c.  Scroll down to find "Windows Gadget Platform" and UN-CHECK it. 

(it is closer to the bottom, maybe 6th from bottom).

  d. Select OK at the bottom of the window. (This can take 5 minutes or longer to process. Be patient.)

2. Reboot.  
3. Turn the "Windows Gadget Platform" back on.  

   a. Open the Control Panel

   b. In the Control Panel, on the "Programs and Features" page, on the upper left side, select "Turn Windows features on or off".

   c.  Scroll down to find "Windows Gadget Platform" and CHECK it. 

   d. Select OK at the bottom of the window. (This can take 5 minutes or longer to process. Be patient.)

4. Reboot

The gadgets should show up. If not, reboot one more time.  If not, use previous suggestions to make sure you have a good file for Config.xml, for Settings.ini, and for 168522d5-1082-4df2-b2f6-9185c31f9472 in the windows sidebar cache folder.

Well I went and did it and tried to mess around with the gadget.  Now I am stuck on New York and no other location can be found.  Tried numerous "fixes" but nothing works.  Oh well should have left well enough alone.

Try removing the read only access. Then turn off the gadget platform, reboot and turn it back on. 

<snip>

I've been posting on both threads so I am probably repeating.

A system restore got my weather gadget back to my location and seemingly working.  But it is using someone elses Config.xml file gotten from the other thread that I had used when I was stuck on New York so it did not restore my own Config.xml file. 

Essentially I am back to the "2017 date change fix" but as I found out and others seem to be reporting as well, the location can not be changed.  Other locations are not found.  And as I found out any attempt to change the Config.xml file at this stage seems to break it and get it stuck on New York.

Do you think your steps would do anything different?

Well I went and did it and tried to mess around with the gadget.  Now I am stuck on New York and no other location can be found.  Tried numerous "fixes" but nothing works.  Oh well should have left well enough alone.

Try removing the read only access. Then turn off the gadget platform, reboot and turn it back on. 

<snip>

I've been posting on both threads so I am probably repeating.

A system restore got my weather gadget back to my location and seemingly working.  But it is using a Config.xml file gotten from the other thread that I had used when I was stuck on New York so it did not restore my own Config.xml file. 

Essentially I am back to the "2017 date change fix" but as I found out and others seem to be reporting as well, the location can not be changed.  Other locations are not found.  And as I found out any attempt to change the Config.xml file seems to break it and get it stuck on New York.

Do you think your steps would do anything different?

I am having the same problem for changing location different than New York, NY.  I had not had this problem before. I have the problem on each of my 3 computers. Only one computer has the Config.xml set in 2017 and read only,

So I tried to manually change the settings on one of my computers. That pc has everything in current date and time and not set to read only, and never has had a problem with my weather data.

This is what I did and it worked for me on that pc.

1. First add another Weather Gadget to the desktop

  a. Open the Gadgets window (right click on the desktop and select Gadgets)

  b. Drag and Drop the Weather Gadget to your desktop.

      This will cause all of your gadget files to update, with a new section added to Settings.ini.

      The files need to be write able'd.

2. Locate the Settings.ini file.

Copy and paste the following BOLD text,into the Windows Explorer search box.

%localappdata%\microsoft\Windows Sidebar

3. Edit the Settings.ini file using NotePad (right click on the Settings.ini file and select "Open with" and then select "Notepad").

You will see settings for all of your gadgets on your desktop.  

The New York, NY settings will look like this:

[Section 13]

PrivateSetting_GadgetName="C:%5CProgram%20Files%5CWindows%20Sidebar%5CGadgets%5CWeather.Gadget"

PrivateSetting_GadgetDropLocationX="3663"

PrivateSetting_GadgetDropLocationY="985"

LocationAPIAvailable="True"

CurrentState="6"

WeatherLocation="New%20York,%20NY"

WeatherLocationCode="xx:USNY0996"

DisplayDegreesIn="Fahrenheit"

PrivateSetting_GadgetSize="small"

4. Change the City that you want.

Use the same method of upper and lower case, and use the %20 for a space. Use a comma and a %20 and the State Letter Abbreviation in upper case. Keep the " quote marks.

5. You need to change the code for the city.

          WeatherLocationCode="xx:USNY0996"

xx represents your profile on your pc.

USNY0996 is the weather monitoring station for the location you want.

You can find that code on the MSN (and other) Weather and Weather .com web pages. Hint. In a search page, search for  

        USNY0996

You will notice that the code USNY0996 in the URL.

So, use the weather page's search capability for the city you want.

When you are on that city's weather page, look at the URL and you'll see something like USDC0001

where DC is the state, in this case District of Columbia, and 0001 is the weather monitoring station number. 

Now, use that data to change the code from:

          WeatherLocationCode="xx:USNY0996"

to whatever you determined, ie          WeatherLocationCode="xx:USDC0001"

6. Save.
7. Reboot. 

One of your weather gadgets will now be at the location you identified. 

It worked for me. I had 2 previous weather gadgets for cities I check regularly. I added two more gadgets and both were New York, NY.

I did this process for one of those, and it is now changed to Washington, DC

The weather matches the web page data for the same location.