If you want something really basic that is more for notes and reminders than a real calendar, I use Stickies.

bpgreen-
Thanks for the suggestion. Can you tell me a little more. For example, there are some things that I want to be reminded of on a monthly basis (pay credit card bill), some things I want to be reminded of on a quarterly basis (insurance payment), some things annually (birthdays), and some things only once (doctor's appointment). Can Stickies be set up so that I only have to make one entry for recurring items, or does each instance have to be separately entered?

I have a bunch of recurring items. You create the stickie, then right click the title bar and choose "Sleep for" then you can set it for X minutes/hours/days/weeks/months or custom (set a time and date for it to wake up). And there's a recurring option where you can set it to go every day, week, month or year. The version I'm using doesn't have a quarterly option, but maybe the newer version does. If not, I suppose you could set up 4 yearly reminders.

Something I do a lot is I'll set a recurring reminder. Then, if I'm busy when it pops up, I tell it to sleep for 2 hours (or something). The original time is still used for the recurring reminder, but the one that just popped up goes away for two hours.

I use a free service called Any Reminder.
It sends me email reminders that I set up in advance.
I use it for doctor/dentist appointments, etc.
It will send reminders the day of, 1 day in advance, 3 days
in advance, 1 week, and 2 weeks in advance, day of and day after.
Or any combination of those days. It is free.

I also use Chamelion Clock (not free, $39.99)
It's great for short term reminders like "take pizza out of oven."
Also makes a great clock and calender.

Pooh Bear

Here is a link that might be useful: Any Reminder dot com

Stickies works for me too. Takes a little getting used to but it does work. Just not as handy as the calendar I couldn't find either.

I would think you could get Sunbird to run by putting it in the startup list. Not sure if startup is located in the same place in Vista as XP.

Smitty

dsmitty-
Thanks. After I posted, I thought about the same thing as you suggested. It does work to put it in the Startup folder. However, when running, it also puts it as an item on the task bar and then I sometimes close it by accident when I close all my open programs/windows...and I don't always shutdown the computer so it's off until my next re-boot. The advantage of the Windows Calendar is that it's always running in the background and doesn't get closed by accident. Unfortunately, since it's still not working correctly, that's not much of an advantage!

I often use windows Task Scheduler to Display a Message and usually make sure I go through all the options so it will display at first boot should the computer be offline at scheduled time. There's some other .. make sure I get the message options too. If you have email notifications it can send you an email.

AOL online has a good calendar...at least I think so. I've used it for years. It will do email reminders.

I use sunbird on one pc and I also use the windows live one with my hotmail, most email clients have a calender and reminder with them so even if you just set up a freebie email account simply to use that feature you could and you can have the reminders sent to other email addresses which is what I do so even if you don't use that email address you can set it's calender up to send out your reminders to the email address you do use. I like the one with hotmail /live mail.

I also on my windows machines use a lot of widgets and they have all kinds of widgets that do those kinds of tasks, I have mine to come on with the pc and stay on my desktop, they have several of the stickies varieties.
just google yahoo widgets and you will be in widget heaven.

I used bizwaremagic.com. My needs are just for birthdays and the like. It comes on my boot up screen each time I turn on the computer. It displays a four week pattern and renews itself each week. An important date is identified with a small dot. Click on it and the day and info appears. I have maybe twenty-five dates I feel are significant. At the end of each year just a couple of clicks and all are carried, for example from 2008 to 2009. It operates independent from the Internet. Once upon a time I tried to keep things like doctor appointments and so on. It worked but their offices always call me anyway so why bother. Good luck, Gene

Gene, thanks for that one. It fits my needs exactly. After I've checked it, I just close it and it's hidden until the next time.