It’s been nearly two years since Windows 7 was released, and yet there are still some features that Windows 7 users may not be taking full advantage of — such as desktop gadgets. Similar to the Mac’s Dashboard Widgets, Windows desktop gadgets are mini-applications that reside on your desktop and can display live data, perform simple functions like search or password generation, or give you a sneak peek inside the inner workings of your PC.

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Brand-specific gadgets

While the focus of this story is on gadgets that everyone can use to get some insight into how their system is working, I’ve also included two great gadgets that require specific hardware or software to work: the gadget that’s included with Symantec’s (SYMC) Norton Internet Security software and the Intel Core Series gadget for looking at certain Intel (INTC) processors.

Norton Internet Security gadget

Symantec’s Norton gadget is among the most colorful. When the software is up to date and Internet bad guys are kept at bay, there’s a prominent green banner across the top of the gadget that says “Secure.” You’ll immediately know that something is amiss if, for instance, your version of the software is out of date, because the banner turns red and says “At Risk.”

Below the banner are icons that lead to the four major elements of the security suite. You can see details about the system’s current security status, discover what other members of your family have been doing online (the software keeps tabs on other computers on your network that share your Norton Internet Security license), check if your backups are up to date and find out if a website is safe before clicking to it.

There’s no download link for the Norton gadget: The only way to get it is to buy Norton Internet Security (regularly $70; now on sale for $50).

Intel Core Series

By contrast, the Core Series gadget is available online and can tell you a lot about your system’s processor — but only if it’s a recent Intel CPU.

The gadget wasn’t written by Intel, but it does a great job of interrogating Intel processors. (AMD (AMD) has a similar system monitoring program, but it’s a full Windows 7 application, not a gadget.)

Like System Control A1, the Core Series gadget monitors up to eight processing threads (rather than cores, as it says), but it’s valuable information nonetheless. It adds a handy overall CPU Usage rating and a graph below. If you add the WinRing0 software, which Core Series can download for you, the gadget can display the chip’s actual clock speed as well.

You can choose a color scheme for the gadget and tell it what to include in the graph along the bottom: individual threads, all the operating threads, core temperature, or temperature and threads together. You can’t resize it, though, which is a problem because the graph is rather crowded.