Rainmeter - Still Relevant With Windows 10?


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I have often thought if things like Rainmeter are really relevant.

I guess it depends what sort of user you are but I always had in the back of my mind that it made desktops look cluttered.  Things like how much CPU or RAM is being used, together with how much space each hard drive has is useless as the latter generally doesn't change significantly.
But then I see some people with news feeds, or other "nice" things that could actually be useful.

Since joining Neowin, I realised how cluttered my desktop was with icons and shortcuts, so over the 10 or so years, I now only have one icon, which points to a drive I use to store "jobs" I have to do.  This has made for a very clean desktop but I have come full circle to looking at Rainmeter again.

So is it still relevant or was it just a Windows Vista era type of program?

On a side track - please feel free to post your fave rainmeter skins!

Haven't used Rainmeter/Samurize/etc in a while now (I don't actually see my desktop when I'm working, so fairly useless for my needs) but don't see why 10 would change things.  If that's your thing, go nuts,  it's still fairly popular on the modding sites.

i gave up on modding when Win7 came out.     nowadays i am running win8.1 with classic shell.

i cannot be bothered to customize the desktop anymore.   i don't have time or will to do it, even though i was totally into it when i was younger.
(this was the main reason i stayed with neowin originally)

even posting funny pictures to neowin seems a better way to waste time, then customizing my desktop.   i rarely ever look at it, since most time is spend in the browser, or in full screen apps.
nowadays my desktop is collection of most important files, things to catchup on,  office/personal stuff and all kinds of new stuff that i did not store anywhere else yet, and i am not sure if i will keep.
i like my wallpaper and stuff is organized in groups around the edges of the screen, but beyond that, i don't need no feeds (smartphone takes care of that) or stats (who cares) to keep going :p

I like having my CPU and GPU temps. If they ever have a live tile that replaces that then I probably won't need Rainmeter anymore though.

How often are you just looking at your desktop to need widgets to show temps?

How often are you just looking at your desktop to need widgets to show temps?

I have many monitors so I like to keep an eye on temps and fan speeds.

I'd say I check any time I hear any fans kicking in.

  • Like 1

Going back to rainmeter, I find them boring, for some reason I just go back to using my sidebar, it's cool, for about a day or so, but after that, nope. (another thing I didn't like was trying to find a network monitor in rm that didn't give my full ip address)

:rolleyes:I find it useful since I have a dual 24" touch monitor setup.

MONITOR 1:  I use Stardock's Start10 Update for the choice of a Windows 7 Start Menu to begin with then I add DisplayFusion for control of a dual monitor setup.  The nice thing about DisplayFusion is it's a one-time purchase and you get lifetime updates (at least for the betas) and you get a second Taskbar with Start button to boot on Monitor 2.  DisplayFusion also locks programs to one or the other Monitor when opening, so in my case I like having Outlook open on Monitor 1 all the time and then when there's a hyperlink in an email that I want to follow, IE or Edge will automatically open on Monitor 2 for viewing.  Then on the Monitor 1 I use Stardock's  Fences to reign in all the program icons under different categories.  For example, I have Microsoft Programs (which includes Office programs, Skype, etc.), General Programs, Security & Utilities and Games.  You can also create custom icons in a Fences category including http://.  I also have iObit's Advanced System Care Performance Monitor (fully expanded so it shows the various system temperatures) to round out that monitor's desktop.  And there's still plenty of space left on the desktop for other Fences categories.

MONITOR 2 :  I use Rainmeter with Omnimo.  Omnimo comes with a lot of its own specific "super" icon tiles much the same as the Windows Tiles.  Some of these are active and others are fixed...just like Windows Tiles.  Then there is the ability to create lots of custom tiles including http://.  Yes, there is a lot of duplication of effort here between monitors, but having access to all your programs on each monitor when you have a program open fullscreen on either is extremely helpful.

And what good does that do ya?

Making sure his system isn't overheating? Some rigs are overclocked and/or undercooled and keeping an eye on these things isn't necessarily a bad idea. For example, when I first built this system I'm on now I babysat the temps, fans and voltages for a while too until I got it "just right."  

That said, there's a ton of things that you can do with Rainmeter that has nothing to do with system monitoring, just look over DA and the like for some ideas on how flexible it is.  Still not for me anymore but it's an excellent tool if you're into that sort of thing. I would love to see this thing have the capability to display on a live tile though, I'd pay money for that. 

i gave up on modding when Win7 came out.     nowadays i am running win8.1 with classic shell.

i cannot be bothered to customize the desktop anymore.   i don't have time or will to do it, even though i was totally into it when i was younger.
(this was the main reason i stayed with neowin originally)

even posting funny pictures to neowin seems a better way to waste time, then customizing my desktop.   i rarely ever look at it, since most time is spend in the browser, or in full screen apps.
nowadays my desktop is collection of most important files, things to catchup on,  office/personal stuff and all kinds of new stuff that i did not store anywhere else yet, and i am not sure if i will keep.
i like my wallpaper and stuff is organized in groups around the edges of the screen, but beyond that, i don't need no feeds (smartphone takes care of that) or stats (who cares) to keep going :p

 

haha

Tl/dr  "i got old" :D

same happened to me.
no more icon/visual style hacking
don't flash roms every 5 mins on my phone, now opt for stock stabilty. 
don't replace car audio anymore as "it's too complicated"
gone back to windows 8.1 as i was having "annoying issues" which i'd
have once spent an age on until they were resolved, somehow.
I've even started going to bed early a few nights a week "to catch up".

WHAT THE **** IS HAPPENING TO ME?! :( get to 40 and everything goes to ****. take heed of this kids ;)

 

I use Rainmeter still for one single skin: Cowon Clock.  It's a clock with a calendar that sits on the Desktop.  I don't have any other skin.  But it's nice having that clock and being able to quickly see the time.

  • 2 months later...

i find speedfan gives me enough info and way less clutter than any rainmeter skin, when not in use i minimise to taskbar showing GPU temp.

It reads all temperatures from each core, SSD and ACPI/GPU temps and fan speeds with auto speed change to my parameters.

I dont have a single icon on desktop wallpaper anymore either tbh.

  • 1 month later...
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