Rainmeter is a multi-purpose tool for your PC that allows custom gadgets that display things such as CPU usage, weather reports, music, and other such things neatly on your desktop, with thousands of skins to choose from to customize your desktop any way you want. I figured this would make a nice first tutorial for me, as it's easy to follow, simple to use, and makes your desktop look so much better than just a plain background.

The very first thing you want to do, is go to Rainmeter.net, and click the "Final Release" download option, whichever version that may be. For me, it is 3.3.2:

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After downloading, locate this file:

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And run it.

during the installation, I recommend using the standard installation, over the portable one, as it is much simpler to set up. And you may also set this program to start with Windows, as an option during installation. After it is installed, you'll see objects appear on your desktop, this is the default skin pack "Illustro", as seen below, the theme displayed is to the right, and the manager is on the left:

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Your manager will not have the dark theme mine does, as that is a custom 3rd party theme, yours will follow however you have your Windows theme set up currently.

To open the manager, click the rainmeter icon from your system tray, as double clicking the program just starts rainmeter, it does not bring up the manager no matter how many times you click it, you MUST open it from the system tray.

Installing skins is as easy as downloading .rmskin packages off of any site that hosts rainmeter skins, google is your friend. For skins that come in a folder, drag them into the directory where you would find "Illustro", the default skin, which is located in Libraries>Documents>Rainmeter>Skins

The direct skin folder with the skin label should be dropped here just like with Illustro. There's many options for your skins, such at being able to click through them, toggling whether or not you can drag them around, and a couple others you'll see in the manager in the picture I posted above.

It's easy to use, easy to manage, and will make your desktop look clean. I prefer the plain Illustro skin because it's clean and simple, but you can also mix and match any way you wish, using different parts from multiple skins to create your perfect desktop. Here is my desktop, how I prefer to have it all the time:

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Again the dark theme such as my taskbar below and it's color, is not included, it is my own customization of an old broken theme I found while on the web somewhere, it's been so long, I forgot. But the meters to the upper right is the Illustro default theme, they update in real time, at around 1 second intervals. It's not just for show, it actually works, and the CPU and RAM usage for this software, is minimal. When selecting skins in the manager, double click to make them appear, and disappear, or to simply remove any of them without the manager, right-click, and select "Unload skin", and it will disappear until you open the manager and double click that specific part again.

This is my first tutorial, so I know it wont be that great, but I'm pretty sure it'll get the message across. Thank you for reading, and I hope this helps you improve the style of your desktop. Have a nice day