A gadget is a stand-alone app.  It has the DX engine wrapped up in it.
A widget needs the DX engine installed on the PC.
An object needs to have the DX engine installed and running.
A Vista sidebar gadget is also stand-alone.

I move all my unzipped DX gadgets/widgets/whatever to the proper directory in C:\Program Files\Stardock\Object Desktop\DesktopX (objects, widgets, gadgets, themes, or Sidebar Gadgets.  Then I run them from there.

Zubaz and Bilbo,
Thank you, that cleared up a lot. I was getting confused when I opened a zip and it had just and exe while others have dlls included. I'll look over that documentation as soon as I post this Bilbo. Thanks again.

I think some gadgets or widgets may contain their own plug-ins like we can see in volume control widget by Julien, there is vista volume control plug-in so the zip may contain the dll file.
By clicking on the exe you have installed it and if you have checed the copy loaded objects to dx directory in the prefrences then it will also get copied.

Good points haptork and Bilbo.  I guess it's not always as clear as we'd like. 

Thany you Zubaz, HAPTORK, bilbo and Tiggs. Very helpful information and just what I was needing. Some of this is kind of confusing for a real newbie, and it's hard to locate the information in tuts or articles most of the time. Sure wish the help information was located together a bit more. I wish when I dl'ed OD there was a basic tut included that explained more basics about using SDC as a central installer, and some of the basics of file extraction or renaming of zips, etc. Any thoughts?

For anyone wanting to learn how create DX widgets/objects/gadgets i believe this link is a good place to start.

Link

There are a LOT of tutorials out there, as well as documentation on DX.

THE BEST way to find any tutorial, code, or examples is to do the following:

goto GOOGLE and type in something like:
DesktopX Tutorials (returns - 33 THOUSAND results)
DesktopX widgets or gadgets - the 3rd one there tells you the diff between widgets/gadgets

I find that i use google for finding all kinds of info, and for how to vbscript examples, and more. Its amazing what is out there.

Just the other day i was looking for how to set the IP address of an adapter with vbscript and it returned this amazing site:
Link
If there is a vbscript function that dx can do, its probably on that page, love the net.

Im not sure why people shy away from doing google searches, most time i can find what i want that way, and if i cant, im sure there is someone here (WC) that knows...

Enjoy!

Yeah, excellent site David. Added to the wiki.

Not meaning to hijack the thread but, a tutorial on Custom Deployment might be a good idea for the future?

Guess, I should of thought that out more. Just tried it with a version of iReflector & it really isn't any different than regular deployment but, it does reduce load time.

There's lot's of tutorials for setup extractors out there. So, forget the request.

Zubaz,
I didn't think I would be qualified enough as such a newbie to add anything to the Wiki's. I guess I can understand Stardock not being able to keep up with documentation on an ever evolving product. Yes WC has a great community. The best I've found for any product or topic. I went over your tut on ObjectBar. Seems very in depth if not a little overwhelming at first. But from what I could see you have the right to be "blatant". Oh, by the way, your spelling was spot on.  I do wish this editor had a spell check!