It did it again this morning (i have not done the Firewall thing yet since i cant find where to do it) , this time i entered my City/State , and it popped back up again in about 5 seconds , so i entered the Zip Code and it worked  , so now it does not want to accept the City/State

OK  , i figured out how to add it to the Firewall Exception List   (i had to search for the folder the .exe was in), so i will see how that goes over the next week    , i am going to try to avoid re-formatting , since it takes about 20 hours to get all my programs re-installed and its a older slower PC (AMD Athlon XP 3000+Socket A ,2gb DDR2 , 256mb Video Card) so i just dont want to do it unless i really have no other choice, and other than this issue , i do not have any other issues with XP or this PC and anything else on it

Thanks again for the replies  , i am HOPING the firewall is the issue , i will see how it works now that i have it on the Exception list    ...

Wanna clear that up a tad?

Maybe it is a conflict,  because you are running at the same time 2 different weather apps... or a conflict with another utility... 

Something has changed as these gadgets worked for years, as I have tested for RnD for quite some time.

Bottom line is XP is no longer supported and DX is being ignored, forgotten or phased out. No use in waiting for a fix under those conditions. I certainly don't expect one.

this has something to do with where/how user settings are stored.

maybe it would help if you run it as administrator and clone the Windows 7 home directory structure on your computer (including hidden folders like %APPDATA%). this is just a guess, do not waste your time with it. seriously no point in running a maybe abandoned application on a soon officialy abandoned OS. there must be dozens of applications to display the current weather for XP that work.

As far as other apps/gadgets , moshi , i have looked and  looked for a simple stand alone weather gadget (without all the other added things like Calenders etc that i dont want) , what adni18 offers is about it for a simple stand alone weather gadget that just displays on the screen without needing to click on something or open something that takes up the entire desktop (the Weather Channel App) , i have searched and searched , the one Wizard1956 is linking to , has a calender added , and it looks to be with a Theme pack or some kind of bundle  , which i dont want  , Google USED to make one , but they have done away with their gadgets all together for some stupid reason  , i guess the same reason Microsoft thinks we need Windows 7 or 8  , and are killing off XP (the best os to date) , and Windows Live Mail  , its crap that we are forced to go to the next best thing , when in fact its worse than what we already have that works fine if they would just leave it alone and stop updating it adding to the issues  ....enough of my Microsoft rant ....

It kind of sucks because i like the way the adni18 gadgets look  , i just am annoyed because of the constant zip code error it gives , even while the entire time it is showing the current weather conditions  , so it makes no sense that is says to enter a zip code , but its working fine , and if you just close out the error box , it just keeps popping up till you enter the zip (you have to do this for each time you clicked it closed ,, or if you just leave the pop up , it will add a new one each time it decides you need to add a zip code , then you have to add the zip to each one of them or they will not go away  so its easier to just enter the zip AGAIN)  , but it would be easier to not have to do this at all , but whatever the cause , it leaves no Error Log in Windows Events , so you can't trace where the issue is , and it has no error log of its own , and i have tried everything suggested (with the exception of reformatting , which i wont do just to make a gadget maybe work better)

Putting the .ini in the main C  folder did not help

Something else i just noticed , the BL Weather kept doing the Zip error  so i went back to the 5 Day Gadget , what i noticed was that it did not create a .ini  , so i read the "About Weather.rtf" , and it said to put in location and read the address bar and use the last 8 numbers (there were only 8 numbers anyway when i did this , the rest was text) and went to Weather Yahoo.com and entered my City,State in the Search Location box and in the Address Bar it came up with http://weather.yahoo.com/united-states/idaho/weiser-12793929/ (my Zip Code is 83672 so it does not resemble any of those numbers which is confusing) , so when i pasted 12793929 into the Zip Code pop up , it instantly came up with the error again saying Not a Valid Zip Code , i tried it again and same result  , so i went back to the main C drive where i created the Adni18 Weather folder in which i have each of the folders for each gadget , i have the "Weather GadgetIII" , "BL Weather" , "F-C Weather" , and the "5 Day Weather" gadgets each in their own folder , i put the 5 day in that main folder not in a separate one  , i selected "Extract Zip Here" so it extracted in that main folder , i clicked on the 5 day.exe and it came up with the 2 jpg's and .rtf ,  but no .ini

So following the instructions did not work at all (using Weather Yahoo.com) , and when it showed up on the desktop it was Canton,MI for the default location when i first installed/set up the gadget ,  so i clicked on the City and the Zip Code pop up came up and the numbers that was in there was 48188 , i am guessing that is Canton,MI but i did not confirm , when i added the 12793929 and it came up with the error i looked and the number in the pop up was 48152  , i put in the 12793929 again and it came up with the error pop up with 48152 again  , so i put in 83672 and it quit popping up , it will most likely work for a few hours again like it has been    BUT , is this the reason why i am having these issues ??? since it wont make a .ini (so far just the 5 day gadget) , but for the main reason that when the pop up happens no matter what gadget i use , it does the same thing with the incorrect highlighted Zip Code in the error pop up , so it seems to revert to the 48152 zip code with the City still showing Weiser,Idaho , this seems to be a common occurrence with the error pop up

This was for an unrelated issue but they didn't work before, or after the reinstall.

And seriously, run a rig without AV or a firewall just to get a weather widget to work.....ain't gonna happen. I ran for over a year without one, but I wouldn't recommend that to anyone.

You are overlooking the fact that every weather widget fails in some way on several rigs, not just your widgets/gadgets and not just on JimDirt or my XP install. Hell. RnD's just plain crash after loading and I've used them for years on XP.

OK i tried the Weiser, Idaho (with the space) and it pops back up within 2 seconds with the Zip Error again , so the only thing it will accept is the Zip Code itself (83672) now , it will not accept the City/State at all without the zip code pop up instantly popping up , i am at this time trying again the Weather F-C Gadget  , and i even restarted the PC after i put it in and it did not make a .ini file at all   , the last stint without a error was till today from the 6th , so 4 days  , this is the part that is confusing since it will work fine for 4 days then give several errors in 1 day , then work for 2 days , then for 1 day then 1/2 a day  , since i started typing this it has popped up 2 times with the zip error , it has been running for a hour since restarting and fresh install/setup of the gadget

As mentioned above  , no .ini file has shown up in the folder  , the Weather GadgetIII does make one , for some reason the Weather F-C does not

My Antivirus is Microsoft Security Essentials , so it is Windows based

I have deleted the Gadget Cache contents (not the folder but the contents)

as stated , since typing this reply the zip error has popped up 2 times , plus the time right before i started this reply so something is amiss

Weiser, Idaho is fine, but Weiser, ID is even better.

What you are saying are very strange dear Jim, I don't know why all these are happening to your computer.

My wife's laptop has the original Windows XP Pro (SP3), with no updates and no antivirus or any other security utility, the XP are working fine and all the gadgets too, therefore there is no way to understand what is going on at your computer... sorry .

I have been following this thread and can confirm that the DesktopX weather gadgets/widgets do not work on an up to date XP. Mine, Adni's, sViz's, Richard's. They all fail in various ways.

Mine crash on load, as do sViz's. Adni's and Richard's give zip errors.

I'd have to agree with Wiz, I am fairly certain it's due to a dot net update, or similar, and the lack of XP support going forward by Stardock.