Are YOU tired of having your desktop look like THIS?

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Today I'm going to help you make you make your boring old desktop look like this:



For those of you who don't wish to read all of the text below, just watch the videos to install RainMeter and RocketDock, but you will need to read the areas below that if you wish to install other items.

You're going to have to install a few programs in order to get your desktop to look like this. The programs that you are going to need to install are:

>RocketDock
>Rainmeter

---

You can download Rocketdock from [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . RocketDock gives you that "top-of-the-screen" dock that Macs have. Rocketdock also allows you to customize the icons which are used (on the dock) for each individual program.
RocketDock was designed as a way for Windows users to more easily access & run applications. RocketDock features the ability to drag and drop icons to/from the dock at ease, without dragging the applications themselves. RocketDock allows for any program/document/song/etc. to be dragged to the dock itself, and each individual icon can be customized via dock settings. Should you choose to enable it, which I would highly recommend (it comes enable by default), you can minimize applications directly to the dock as opposed to the taskbar along the bottom of your screen.

Here is a video of RocketDock in action (taken directly from the RocketDock website):


For those who are having trouble installing Rocketdock, here is an installation video:

---

Now that you've finished installing RocketDock, we can now move on to install Rainmeter.

Rainmeter is fully compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.
You can download the latest release or beta version of from [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . The (.exe) installer allows for two types of installation "standard" and "portable." I recommend the standard installation.
Please Note: Both 32bit and 64bit installations are done with the same installer.

If you are running on a 64bit version of Windows, you will be asked if you wish to install 64bit or 32bit Rainmeter. If the installer detects a previous version of Rainmeter on your system, the same version (32bit / 64 bit) will be installed, so you should make sure (if you've changed from 32bit to 64bit or vice versa to remove any previous Rainmeter files). If you wish to change from a 32bit OS to a 64bit OS, you should uninstall Rainmeter first.

The file which Rainmeter uses to keep track of the skins you have loaded and how they are configured (Rainmeter.ini) is stored in your "Application Data" folder, and all Rainmeter "skins" are stored in your "My Documents" folder.

I will only be covering how to do the "Normal Installation" on this tutorial, I will not be including the "Portable Installation" tutorial, if you require help with the "Portable Installation" please refer to the Rainmeter documentation or PM me.

In order to begin the installation, please run the installer. The default installation location for Rainmeter files will be "C:\Program Files\Rainmeter", but you may change the installation location when prompted during setup. The installer will present you with a set of options allowing you to create Start Menu and desktop shortcuts, have Rainmeter automatically start with Windows, and install Rainmeter for all users or just one user.

Picture Rainmeter Install Tutorial

Yet again, another video tutorial for those who either didn't want to read the above instructions or just didn't understand how to run the installer.



How to install Rainmeterskins

Download the skin from the internet. Usually these skins will come in (.rar/.zip) files, and will need to be extracted before they can be installed. Once you have extracted the files to an easily accessible location (I would recommend putting them on your desktop for the time being), make sure that you know where you extracted them to. Please make sure that all of the skin files are contained in a single folder (they usually are, but if they aren't please put them into a folder now). Take the folder that you extracted (or that you have just created), and move it into the skins directory of Rainmeter.
The following are the default skins directories for Rainmeter:

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\My Documents\Rainmeter\Skins\
Windows Vista and 7: C:\Users\Your Name\Documents\Rainmeter\Skins

If you are already running Rainmeter, make sure to refresh Rainmeter by right-clicking the icon in the taskbar and choosing "Refresh All". The skin that you have just downloaded should now appear in the "Configs" list.

Loading a skin (Once you have already installed it)

To load a skin that you have downloaded from the internet, right-click the icon in the taskbar which will open the context menu and navigate to the "Configs" menu. Here, a list of all of the skins that you have in your skins folder should appear. From here choose the folder which holds the skin you want.

Please note that I am using the skin "Enigma" which is my favorite, but there are many other available skins on the internet.

---

Navigate through the Rainmeter menus and play with the settings until you find the options that you like, this is a fairly simple process, but if need be I will edit this post to address where each aspect of my desktop can be found and how to enable them.
One (of the many) non-stock options that I have in my Rainmeter, as many of you may have noticed is that I have a (semi-)live updater for my Xbox 360 account. This can be found [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] .
How to make the this Rainmeter Xbox skin display YOUR gamertag.

Double click on the file named "Xbox Gamercard.rmskin" to install the addition itself. Once you have installed the Rainmeter addon, open the Manage Rainmeter menu, click on the tab named "Skins", select "Xbox Gamercard", then "YourGAmerTAG.ini", and then click on edit. Used Cntrl+F to search for "gamertag=your Gamertag" Once you have found this, simply replace "your Gamertag" with the gamertag whose profile you wish to have updates from, and voila! You have now installed the "Xbox Gamercard Display" addon for Rainmeter.

If you have any questions feel free to respond to this thread, I will try to respond to any questions on this thread as often as I can, but if your question is urgent feel free to PM me.

Credit for any Youtube videos, applications, and/or additions to applications goes to their respective owners.

Please post feedback on this thread, and feel free to respond with any questions that you may have!