What software do you already have?  If you have Windowblinds or another OD software, you should buy the Object Desktop suite. For only a little more money, you get a lot more software, including DesktopX, IconX, IconPackager, Windowblinds, WindowFX, etc :)

I'm not sure if just the Desktop X software still includes IconX. I know it used to, but not sure it still does.  Nevertheless Object Desktop is the way to go.

When did you purchase Windowblinds and Icon Packager (ObjectDock Plus is not part of OD)?  Maybe you can get your purchase for both (40$ together) put towards a purchase of the whole suite (50$) and you would then only have to dish out an extra 10$. Contact sales @ stardock.com.

IconX will only improve, Window FX is really cool, you got to try it, and there are more than a dozen other programs in OD. Well worth the extra 10$.

Pharoe got it correct. You don't need to have Desktop X running in order to use widgets. As Widgets are exe's, you can open and close them individually quite easily. You can also have specific widgets auto-run, you can assign different keyboard shortcuts to toggle the visible/invisible. Etc.

Hope things work out for you.