Saturday, May 28, 2011

[Computer]Guide to "awesomize" your desktop with Rainmeter

Well, I think this will help someone to make their desktop looks "cool and shits".
I strongly recommend Windows 7, since it is much better in the side of appearance, and it totally kicks Windows XP's ass. Of course you can still use Windows XP, but you will have to go through a hell lot of trouble. But I will leave it for another time.
So... you can download Rainmeter from rainmeter.net. After downloading it, you need to install(duh). But after the installation, you just get a default skin. So, you need to download another skin.
Also, you should note that "skin" and "theme" is different. The "skin" is a package of resources, such as clock, calendar, RAM meter, CPU meter etc... and "theme" is a config of how you modify the skin's resources.
To download a skin, go to deviantart, where all the artists are just awesome, go to the customization menu, then skins and themes, select system monitoring, and choose Rainmeter. All of those are in the menu in the left of the site. You can choose any skin you like, and download them.
After downloading, there are 2 ways it can work:
- If you downloaded a rainstaller file, just run it.
- If you downloaded a file which is a folder of the skin, copy it to (system disk):\Users\(Your username)\Document\Rainmeter\Skins in Windows 7 or (system disk):\Documents and Settings\(Your username)\Document\Rainmeter\Skins in Windows XP.
Now, you have to right click on the rainmeter's icon in the notification area, and choose refresh all.
If you want to add a skin's component to the desktop, you can right click the rainmeter's icon->configs->(the skin you want)->(The component you want) and then tick on the variant that you like. Be warning that only one variant of a component can be placed at one instance.
If you want to remove a skin's component, right click on it, choose close skin.
You might be extremely furious when you press windows+D to show your desktop, and all the skin's components are disappear. In that case, you have to manually right click on EVERY COMPONENTS, choose settings, choose position, and select on desktop.
If you don't want the components to snap its edges together, you can right click the component, settings and deselect snap to edge.
Here is my desktop. I hope I helped someone with this.
And happy awesomizing your desktop.

33 comments:

  1. I love rainmeter! when i got my new desktop it was one of the first things I installed along with my rocketdock! i only use it for minimalist use though, i literally have a clock and some system info like HHD status, power, ram and CPU %'s .

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  2. It's a very light software. It takes around 13MB of memory when I open all of those on the screen that I posted up there.

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  3. well, it seems kinda useless and cluttered at the same time. if you have a CPU meter on your desktop you won't actually be able to see it when your running full screen programs.

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  4. I've always liked Rainmeter, but my screen gets clogged with so many shortcuts that i can barely enjoy it. Cool guide tho

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  5. I've always wanted to customize my desktop with stuff like Rainmeter. Maybe now's the time to actually do it.

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  6. Your blog layout is awesome, btw.

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  7. This is so cool! my desktop has never looked so good ;D

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  8. Cool! I'm definitely trying this.

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  9. It looks like one of those computer hacking screens from the movies.

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  10. Customising now ;D Very cool indeed.

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  11. is this like the blue screen of death?

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  12. Awesome. Rainmeter is a great desktop enhancer.

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  13. Woah! i like win7 too, because of the gadgets

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  14. Rainmeter always seems too cluttered to me...I don't know I like a clean desktop are there any like minimalistic sleek themes for it?

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  15. I've got a very simple Rainmeter skin going - though tbh, it's more for aesthetics than actual usability.

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  16. its great but a huge drain on cpu

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  17. Yeah it kicks ass if you don't use anything more than rainmeter!

    I used to use a Persona 3 Clock, it was awesome!

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  18. Rainmeter has been on a desktop for a year now. So functional and customizable. I love it.

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  19. I have it, and I love it!

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  20. Its pretty awesome, if only I ran windows. =P I use Fedora Core

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  21. Wow, thats great. Guess i'll check it out.

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