How to get Rainmeter plugins and install them
These are the widgets that Rainmeter uses
The above picture uses Rainmeter plugins to display the music visualizer, the day and time, and the weather. The wallpaper is an animated wallpaper that I enabled through Wallpaper Engine.
Specifically, the plugins that I’m using are:
- Monstercat visualizer
- WeatherDesk
- Mond
These are very easy to download and set up. The problem with Rainmeter is that the plugins are typically spread out across the internet, and you can use sites like Deviantart and the /r/Rainmeter subreddit to find setups that other people are using. Plus, there’s even a Rainmeter forum, so that you can find out what other users are doing and find new plugins and skins to use.
When you download files, they’re in a .rmskin file format, and double-clicking them will launch Rainmeter and add them to your desktop overlay. You can drag them around or right-click them to configure them, and most skins you import will allow you to configure them in some way or another. For example, Mond will allow you to set your location manually and your temperature units.
Rainmeter is still a great way to customize your PC
Especially if you don’t want to do anything too crazy
Rainmeter has a ton of options that you can modify, and your plugins are all easily modified and changed too. Most of them have settings you can change for things like color, units of measurement, location, transparency, and more. Plus, other ones are full-fledged programs like JaxCore, where you can configure and change many, many more options and how the skins interact with your entire system.
As a result, Rainmeter is a program with an incredible level of depth with a sizeable enough learning curve, so I’d recommend doing some reading to find out what you can and can’t do with it. It’s a very powerful program that I’ve been using for years and still don’t fully understand the depths of, as I use it for basic tuning and modification of my desktop without anything too crazy.
People have managed to make their desktops look like entirely different computers, and with other modifications you can make like taskbar changes too, you can truly make your PC your own with programs like Rainmeter.
