Rainmeter is an open source, desktop customization tool. With it, you can use skins; different applications that float freely on your desktop to enhance your desktop.
You can download the lastest version of Rainmeter here.
There are thousands of skins available to he Rainmeter community. A skin can be just about anything. From weather forecasts to RSS feeds to system management and everything in-between, there’s a skin for it.
If your interested in learning how to create a Rainmeter skin, check out the manual. Don’t worry if you have not technical knowledge. Installing Rainmeter and downloading skins doesn’t require any coding.
The Basics
This is standard Rainmeter window. Here you can load/ install rainmeter skins and decide which skins you want of your desktop.
Initially, Rainmeter is pre-loaded with illustro. Feel free to fool around with this skin, but eventually you’ll want to go through the illustro folder and unload these skins.
Click the arrow on the left side to drill down into skin packages. Some packages contain more than one skin. These are refereed to as suites. Mix and match any skin you like on your desktop by loading and unloading.
Installing a Skin
There are two ways to install a Rainmeter skin.
The first is via an .rmskin package. This a file is created via the Rainmeter software and is the easiest way to install a skin. Simply download the file and open it.
Click “Install” and the skin should be moved into your Rainmeter Skin’s folder. You can now load and unload the skin at your discretion.
My skin isn’t .rmskin
Most skins are downloaded in this format, but occasionally you might find a skin that is not in an .rmskin format. The skin will download as a folder. In this situation, you will manually move the skin folder into the Rainmeter skin folder.
This is typically located under My Documents >> Rainmeter >> Skins , but it will vary upon where you download Rainmeter.