

Another concern is that since Live Tiles run in a more restrictive environment, they are less useful for some purposes, such as monitoring system information. But one of the drawbacks is that you'd have to access the Start menu or Start screen before you can access the tiles. Starting with Windows 8 and beyond, Microsoft began to heavily push Live Tiles instead, which are supposed to offer similar functionality.

The concept of desktop gadgets has been around for quite some time, and Microsoft officially introduced them in Windows Vista to much fanfare.
