Rainmeter Lab
Replacing File Explorer
Assigned Date: Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Due Date: 11:59 pm, Sunday, October 6, 2019
For this assignment, you will be exploring graphical user interfaces, and how different pieces of information can be displayed in different ways. (You’ll also discover that the Windows interface is not as set in stone as you might think!)
Lab Submission
For this lab, you will be submitting three screenshots to Canvas (the submissions items are bolded in the lab below). We recommend putting these screenshots into a single Word document and uploading that file instead of submitting each screenshot individually.
Part 0: VM Snapshot
If you haven’t taken a snapshot of your VM yet, you should do so to ensure you can also revert back to the machine’s current state if you make a mistake and render your VM unusable. You can find instructions for taking a snapshot here.
Part 1: Explorer.exe
Start up the Windows Virtual Machine that you created in class a few weeks ago.
Open up Task Manager and locate the ‘Windows Explorer’ process. (You may have to click on ‘More Information’ at the bottom of the window to make it visible.) Right-click Windows Explorer and choose to end the task. Close Task Manager once this is done.
Using your desktop computer (not your VM), take a screenshot of what happens after explorer.exe is stopped and Task Manager is closed.
How do we get our desktop back?! Go to your VMWare window and choose ‘Send Ctrl-Alt-Delete’ from the Player menu. This will bring up a screen to allow you to relaunch Task Manager.
Once Task Manager is open again, go to the File menu and choose ‘Run new task.’ In the window that pops up, type in ‘explorer.exe’.
Your Windows interface should reappear. Phew!
Part 2: Rainmeter
Open up a web browser in your VM and go to https://www.rainmeter.net. Download the ‘Final Version’ of the Rainmeter software, and then click on ‘Get Started’.
Work through the first three pages of the ‘Getting Started’ tutorial (‘Getting Started’, ‘Setting Up’, and ‘Using Rainmeter’ (but do not exit Rainmeter as the very end!). This should allow you to install Rainmeter on your VM and load and unload skins from your setup.
Now for the fun part: Find an interesting (but PG) Rainmaker skin somewhere on the Internet (Rainmaker offers some starting points, but Googling for specific themes can work) and install in on your VM. Using your desktop computer, take a screenshot of your cool new skin once it’s loaded.
Part 3: Begone, Explorer.exe!
WARNING: This part involves manually messing with the Windows registry. If you haven’t created a snapshot of your VM, do it before you start Part 3.
Click on the magnifying glass in the bottom-left of your VM and type in ‘regedit’. Open the Registry Editor application that pops up.
In the folders on the left side of the Registry Editor, navigate to Computer HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion Winlogon. In the list of keys that appear on the right, double-click the Shell key and change the value from explorer.exe to the location of your Rainmeter installation (likely C:\Program Files\Rainmeter\rainmeter.exe).
Hit ‘OK’, close the Registry Editor, and reboot your VM. Using your desktop computer, take screenshot of your VM after it reboots and you log in (you should only see Rainmeter on your desktop).
Cleanup
If you wish to revert back to Windows Explorer:
Send a Ctrl-Alt-Delete to your VM and start Task Manager.
Go to File Run New Task, but start ‘regedit’ instead of explorer.exe to bring up the Registry Editor.
Repeat Step 11 from the lab, and change the value of Shell back to ‘explorer.exe’. Hit OK and then reboot the machine.
Your Windows desktop should reappear!
Last updated
