Win10 Widgets lets you keep tabs on your hard drive, CPU and more from your desktop

By Jared DiPane
published

Win10 Widgets is a neat little app that lets you add widgets to your home screen so you can keep tabs on things like memory usage, your hard drive space, computer performance and much more. The app is built on an open source program called Rainmeter, which is a lightweight app that allows your computer to display customizable widgets.

You will need to install both Rainmeter and Win10 Widgets in order for it to run properly. Some of the widget options include:

  • Hard Drive
  • Performance
  • Battery
  • CPU
  • Network
  • Disk
  • Memory
  • Date / Time
  • Wi-Fi
  • Volume
  • Lock
  • Weather
  • Spotify
  • Layout Switcher

You can grab both Rainmeter and Win10 Widgets for free right here to get started with adding widgets to your desktop.

More: Where to find wallpapers like the one above

Jared DiPane
Jared DiPane

Jared started off writing about mobile phones back when BlackBerry ruled the market, and Windows Mobile was kinda cool. Now, with a family, mortgage and other responsibilities he has no choice but to look for the best deals, and he's here to share them with you.

48 Comments
  • Please advise on this. I understand widgets of Windows Vista was taken away due to security reasons, I am assuming this is very different from that and not a concern. Is this correct? Because I am interested in having something like this if there's no other issues. Thank you for your replies in advance.
  • Code is on GitHub, and is based on an open source program called Rainmeter. It's made by a kid in college trying to pay off his student loans.
  • But, is it considered safer than vista/win 7 widgets?
  • This would be plenty safer, the old widgets were installable through any website/download as it was simply installed through a ".widget" file. Once installed those files used html/javascript style code to access your computer and the web simultaneously and would start up with your computer with administrative access... The old widgets in turn were notoriously unmanageble both in the memory consumption department and in actually securing windows. Seeing that all the widgets are made by the author himself (and he is actually transparent about how he funds himself) it is very likely that this is much more safe than vista/win 7 widgets.
  • Rainmeter is a great Widget tool but its addicting it starts with adding a couple things like weather and hd stats. Then ends with you making your desktop look like a hud from halo or iron man. Be warned
  • lol
  • So true. So beware, it makes the desktop looks futuristic. :p
  • I used to use it on win 7 and that happened to me!
  • I use Enigma on rainmeter to add widgets to my desktop.... It looks simple and clean.
  • It was gadgets Posted via the Windows Central App for Android
  • I use it wth the Avengers theme lol I can leave my PC unlocked temporarily and people are afraid to use it
  • That was one the few of best things on Vista.... I used to have a network sidebar... it was excellent.  Just today morning I looked for the website from where I downloaded all widgets but no success. I still have to the installation file somewhere in backup...most probably won't work !!!
  • Articles like this one show why we need the preview font color to be changed on light theme. Because the image is dark, I can't read the byline, date or number of comments (in dark text). Only the article title is visible. Please change the text color to match the article title. And yes, I've posted this on the uservoice page.
  • Noted.
  • Thanks, Dan. This readability was actually part of why I preferred the old way of showing the titles below the image, rather than over it. This way is fancier but I don't think it's better.
  • Update: It's fixed in an internal build and we'll roll it out with the next update, coming this week.
  • Has anyone tested it to see if it is aware of whether you are in tablet of desktop mode? It would be great if it turned off in tablet mode.
  • Great
  • Oooh.  Kinda like Live Tiles.  :P
  • tough crowd..
  • That widgets guy is still in business???!?!?! lol
  • Oh this is still w32.. Thought UWP api actually allowed this because it says win10. There's lots of these out there. Not unique to windows 10 simply w32. Maybe the name is due to the theme. But there are others that let you customize theme anyways.
  • It just uses the styling of W10.
  • How to use Spotify?
  • Wow! This is awesome and it looks cool. It doesn't look like it is made by a student.
  • This looks cool, but I'll stick with Rainmeter for my desktop.
  • It is Rainmeter, lol. It's just Rainmeter with a pre-packed Win10 theme.
  • I just installed this and I love it, mostly the weather and spotify widgets! From a consumer point of view, these are great, and aesthetically blend in to Windows 10!
  • Cool, will definitley check out. But more importantly where did you get that wallpaper in the screenshot from? :)
  • This sucks, man. Terrible. Rainmeter is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than this garbage. *Waiting for Dan to comment on this*
  • So we had Windows 8 with live tiles doing exactly the same thing and everybody came down on that like a ton of bricks. Now we have the effing desktop back and a start menu that IMHO is neither here nor there and we're using an app to get... live tiles. You know what? Sometimes I don't get people anymore.
  • Robert, this is nothing like the look of live tiles. The W8 tiles were just ugly flat blocks of color, it's no wonder they were rejected. These widgets are actually pleasing to the eye at least in my opinion. Much better than blocky tiles.
  • Meh, can't post image. Compare this. http://i.stack.imgur.com/LMjGU.png
  • Is that on the desktop? No? Ok then.
  • Pinning tiles to the desktop would have been a lot better if it was part of the OS.
  • Or just have Interactive Live Tiles would essentially have same thing as widgets, only more efficient (in theory) more consistent, and developers cam easily take advantage of it with their apps. Sadly this idea has been pushed back for Anniversary Update.
  • Yeah, I've always thought it would be cool to be able to pin live tiles to the desktop.
  • Just installed it and it looks sweet! I use my 2-in-1 for presentations alot and im hoping for a stopclock widget that could float over MS word in a tiny window, would be really useful. Oh and a 'peek-a-boo' picture in picture video player so that i can sneak in looking at videos at work ninja style lol
  • Something like this should have been part of the OS. Or at least let us pin apps to the desktop, i.e. weather app tile.
  • Wow me like it
  • I just need a black taskmgr
  • Why can't we just use Live Tiles on the desktop just like we can use icons on the desktop?
  • Love it... how about a Live Windows Central Widget!!
  • It looks nice. I wish MS brought interactive tiles in Redstone.
  • Weather widget is currently down...
  • I got this thing after ages of looking.
    It is super cool.
  • More useful than live tiles
  • I enjoy having these widgets but daaaamn are Rainmeter and these widget skins resource heavy.My i7 laptop never falls under 20% when running it. Slows down my boot time by 10-15 seconds too.No support for Win10 Groove app or VLC player is a real downer also. other than that i give a 7/10 score.