Download: Rainmeter 2.2

Customising your Windows desktop can be as simple or as complicated as you like. For most people, the options provided by Windows itself are often sufficient, while others want to push the envelope further. One way in which your desktop can be made to work harder is by using it to display all kinds of useful information – in Vista and Windows 7, there are specific gadgets that perform this function, but they’re limited and a little clunky to implement, while XP users are left completely in the cold.

This is where Rainmeter comes in: this desktop customisation tool works on the assumption that the desktop is yours to do with as you see fit. It offers an alternative platform to the Sidebar used in later versions of Windows, offering a wide variety of customisable “skins” (Rainmeter’s rather confusing term for gadgets) that allow you to pretty much cover the desktop with your choice of information, tools and shortcuts.

These skins can act as simple information portals – giving you access to system information, favoured RSS feeds or the latest email count in your inbox, for example. They can also be developed further to provide interactive functionality, such as skins that record notes or let you tweet direct from your desktop. You can also use skins to serve as a panel containing shortcuts to all your favourite programs, allowing you to banish the taskbar or clean up the desktop.

Skins can be developed by hand – they’re open-source, so widely available – or you can download packages known as “themes”. You’ll be prompted to download additional themes after installation, although a basic “illustro” is provided to give you an idea of what’s available. Rainmeter will launch with a selection of skins pre-loaded, such as date/time, disk information, a Lifehacker RSS feed and a Google search box, enabling you to launch web searches direct from the desktop. There’s also a welcome panel with links to articles helping you familiarise yourself with the program.

Edit skin settings by right-clicking the skin itself – this opens a .ini file in Notepad where you can tweak settings by hand. You can also configure the program from its icon in the Notification area of the Taskbar.

New in version 2.x: an integrated installer covering both 32- and 64-bit builds as well as a portable application for more experienced users. Featured skins are now separated from the main build, replaced by a starter package to get people up and running quickly, while skin developers will be pleased to see a number of new plugins are available that will greatly extend the functionality of future skins that are developed.

The latest 2.2 build ships with these new features/fixes:

• Localization support -- finally! Our users have already translated the Rainmeter UI into 35 languages ranging from Arabic to French to Vietnamese. Your language can be selected when Rainmeter is installed, and changed at any time using the Manage tool.
• "Show desktop" support improvements. Previously, skins had to be manually set to "On desktop" to keep them visible when using "Show desktop". Now, you don't have to do a thing -- skins will stay visible by default when you show the desktop.
• Rainmeter executables are now "digitally signed", to ensure what you are using is valid and unaltered, as well as reducing many "false positive" returns from some antivirus software.
• Several important improvements to NowPlaying plugin.
• Added "Type" to FreeDiskSpace measure to determine the type of drive being measured.
• Dynamic variables now supported on plugins for common measure settings.
• New "Process" plugin, to determine if a particular process or application is running.
• Many bug fixes and performance enhancements, which make Rainmeter even lighter, faster, and more reliable.

You can download Rainmeter 2.2 ini Source