How to recover dashboards and widgets from a user account that's been removed

The Widgets still exist on the Apex server

Program files/observer/reports/widgets

Program files/observer/reports/dashboards

They all exist as XML files and there’s a USER ID in that XML.

Make a new widget using your normal user account.  You will see the new widget XML in the Apex file system. Open it up to see what User ID your current user has.

Find the old dashboards you wish to recover, edit the XML to overwrite the old user ID with your user ID. 

Then stop/start Apex Web Service using an RDP connection for local access.  

All of those old widgets from the removed user will show up under your account.