You're in luck, actually: it turns out that Windows 7 includes an entire set of small apps that Microsoft calls "Gadgets", one of which is a clock. These desktop Gadgets are intended to be little widgets or gizmos that serve a single, simple purpose and can be scattered throughout your desktop, showing things like system performance, the weather, or even a ticker with the latest news from your favorite RSS-friendly Web site.

What's odd is how few people know about them, let alone actually enable them on their WinPCs. Seems like a bit of a failed experiment to me, but that doesn't mean that they're not cool and useful!

Let's have a look.

First off, it's as easy as possible to get to the Gadgets: Simply right-click on an empty spot on your Windows desktop, and it shows up in the contextual menu that appears:

You can see it, it's the entry one before the last and even has a cute -- if tiny -- picture of an orange gizmo against the computer screen. Once it opens you'll know there's some Windows goodness hidden here:

This is the set of Gizmos that Microsoft includes with Windows 7, including a calendar, clock, cpu performance meter, currency converter, weather display and news headline. All surprisingly helpful, particularly if you have a nice big screen with lots of real estate.

More importantly, look on the lower right, where it says "Get more gadgets online". Yup, click on that and you'll find that there are a number of third-party developers that have created free gadgets for Windows 7 that are ready to install at the click of a button. How easy is that? Here, check it out: Windows 7 Gadget Library.

In this case we're just interested in the clock gadget, so click on the "Clock" and it'll just pop up on your screen:

The user interface for gadgets is a bit weird, so you'll need to know that there are no controls or options. Unless you put the cursor on the gadget itself. With the clock you see a small strip of buttons that magically appears:

Click on the "X" and the gadget is removed from your desktop. Click and drag on the "pin square" on the bottom and you can move the gadget to the specific spot on your screen that best suits your visual tastes. Click on the wrench, however, and a configuration window appears, with lots of useful options:

One option here, as you can see, is the clock style. And who doesn't like a pink Pokemon-esque clock? I'll choose it, and also check the box "Show the second hand", and now the clock on my desktop is much more peppy:

There's the solution to your question about a desktop clock for Windows 7. Nice, eh?