So i've been doing quite a bit of research and am madly confused on how to get uxtheme/rainmeter stuff to work. would anybody be kind enough to help me?
you gotta get a uxtheme.dll patcher (you can do it manualy but its a huge pain in the ass because windows has a bunch of backups) and rainmeter is just a standalone program
what windows are you using?
go to that link and download vistaglass...install...run the program and do what it tells you to do.
go to : http://www.deviantart.com/#catpath=customization/skins/vistautil/visstyles&order=9
download whatever themes you like...then extract them or whathaveyou.
then open c:/ -> windows -> resources -> themes
copy and paste the theme files into that folder and go to your theme options in windows...it should be under the theme list
...if it doesn't show up try just clicking the actual theme files in the theme folder.
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for rainmeter just install the program ( http://www.rainmeter.net/ )
then go to deviant art and find some skins for it....copy paste into a folder called "skins" or something like that (i forget, it should be under the program files/ rainmeter directory)
restart rainmeter and right click and there should be a menu with all the installed skins ... just pick which ones you want.
hope this halps.