How To: Trick Out Your Desktop with Rainmeter

By Tom's Guide Staff
published

You can turn your desktop into an attractive information portal that requires no manual input thanks to this little program and some scripting skill.

ObjectDock

Many people who trick out their computers with Rainmeter also use ObjectDock, a Windows taskbar replacement.

To some degree, I think this is a holdover from the bad old days of Windows XP and Vista. You've probably seen people who had desktops filled with icons because they wanted everything immediately accessible. The problem is this slowed down the computer quite a bit as the desktop became more cluttered.

Microsoft put considerably more power into the Windows 7 Task Bar, but some people are purists and are willing to pay $19.95 for ObjectDock Plus, which offers more versatility and power than the freeware version does.

ObjectDock Plus has things like multiple-dock support and active Windows task support, so you can see active tasks and switch to them. The problem I had was that the system tray was missing when I hid the desktop, so I brought it back and pushed it over to a corner. I'm still finding my way around ObjectDock myself, so hopefully I will figure out a solution.

ObjectDock lets you make desktop folders of sorts to organize your apps and directories into folders like popup drawers. There are also modified skins for ObjectDock to get rid of the Mac OS X look and literally turn icons into buttons. WinCustomize has a hefty collection of icons for ObjectDock.

Tom's Guide Staff
Tom's Guide Staff

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18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ssddx
    Sample Destop...Mine
    Hah! I see you use ObjectDock Plus! as well. Awsome program.

    This looks interesting; I will have to check it out. Is that circle in the bottom right a working calendar?
    Reply
  • house70
    Hey, tom's, how come we are still getting swamped with spam? Here's an idea: mark as spam any message that has more than 2 links in it and any message that has more than twice the symbol $ in it. That should help out for a while until you come up with even better filters.
    Reply
  • shoelessinsight
    I downloaded Rainmeter after reading this article and have been experimenting with it for a few hours. Though I am having a hard time getting reliable readings of my system temperatures and my current wireless bandwidth, most of the skins are surprisingly easy to customize.

    Thanks for the article! =)
    Reply
  • gdroland
    Awesome article. I've got alot of Rainmeter desktops setup over on DeviantArt.com / With all the files you need to create them on your own computer. Check them out and don't hesitate to ask in the comments if you have questions/difficulties.

    http://gdroland.deviantart.com/
    Reply
  • cosmie
    Which weather skin is being used on the sample desktop?
    Reply
  • ecnovaec
    I love your desktop! can you please tell us what clock/etc you are using??
    Reply
  • tgandy
    Cosmie,

    I use the Felix weather widget. It comes with the Rainmeter install.
    Reply
  • tgandy
    ssddxHah! I see you use ObjectDock Plus! as well. Awsome program.This looks interesting; I will have to check it out. Is that circle in the bottom right a working calendar?
    Yes it is. I've been on the computer at midnight and watched it update the day and date.
    Reply
  • scottman777
    I've also downloaded Rainmeter after reading your article - awesome! Where'd you get that calendar?
    Reply
  • scottman777
    n/m I found it! Thanks for the article!
    Reply