From performance point of view which is better Rainmeter or Fences

I have to two choices here to use Rainmeter or Fences. I own a old Windows XP laptop. Luckily both tools work on it. The laptop has just 1GB ram. I do not want to use the one which is more resource intensive. Till yet I had notice that Rainmeter is better. But still I need suggestion on the same.

As both of them are desktop apps, and I overload the system with widgets I think the system might respond more slowly. I need to such applications to make my desktop a bit more interactive as the existing one looks a bit dull. To get some system resources I had disabled the theming options. I am working on plain dark background.

Go for Raimeter. This is better. Fences tries to change your existing desktop settings which makes your system more laggy. Disable screensaver and other effects. Rainmeter is simple and light and you can simply turned it off easily from system tray.

You can find that through Task Manager. The best part of using Rainmeter is that, it does not need installation. All files are just extracted in a folder and from there you can run it. While Fences is installed and changes are done to Windows. You can add both of them. First run Fences and then check. Then exit Fences and run Rainmeter. Now again check the Task Manager back again. If you find fluctuation or difference among them then you can use the only one that you like. For slower system it is not recommended to add such widget. The more settings you make the more time desktop will take to load up. But you can use Rainmeter blindly.

It is one of the lightest desktop customization tool I had saw. It works independently not making any changes to your system files. Also to remove it you just have to delete the folder. The themes and other add-ons are simple and you can make changes to it in simple text file. This all features are not really present in fences.

I will not advice you to add any sort of desktop add-ons. This would make your system super slow. Better work on the plain background only. Instead of adding any third party add-ons be serious about the performance.

Fences is a commercial software. So if you get the free version I hope that can be a bit low optimized. The pro version will cost you $19.95. Fences is recommended for a bit higher system. As there are additional boxes on your screen. This boxes needs good memory power to stay active. While Rainmeter is extremely different. Fences is a full fledged software in which all customization works while Rainmeter is just a skin. You can load up skin on your screen and add various elements of your choice. Rainmeter is also very lite. I too agree with the same. It is not all complicated to handle both. But it depends on your choice which tool you want. I

f you are talking performance point of view, then even I recommend Rainmeter. I had checked size of skin provided by it which are almost in kbs. This skins loads very fast and are easy to configure. You do not need to make any major changes to it. While Fences works in the system background eating a small amount of your system resources at every point.

First of all why do you need a desktop customization tool. If you said that you have a old desktop then you must avoid it. Instead of that you must get a shortcut bar or dock panel. This dock panel must be loaded with icons which will help you to run software's. This is not all complicated to manage and configure.

There are many things that you can configure to make your system a bit faster. Like you can simply use msconfig to disable some startup items. You had disable theme already. This will give you more system resources to utilize. At that point adding Fences will simply do nothing. Because I am using Fences and I had switched to Rainmeter. If you have a Windows 7 system with 2GB ram and good integrated video memory then Fences works quiet well. Windows already looks a bit laggy when you overload it.

Compared to that, Rainmeter offers you minimal solution. Fences allow you to arrange your desktop icons the way you want. You can crate fence on your screen and divide the icons as per your need. This is a resource extensive desktop app. While if you just want to add widgets or clocks on the screen then Rainmeter is one of the best I can say. It looks that you have two different kind of requirement. One is either you need a better icon arrangement or second you need some additional widget.

It is better get a nice dock if you just need the shortcut arrangement. My desktop is very slow. So I had deleted all the icons and use a third party software like mouse extender. When press alt I can see a small launcher on my screen which has set of all icons inside it. It is quiet very comfortable and less resource hungry.

Download Rainmeter and ignore Fences. I was also using Fences. I love to decorate my desktop with different elements and for that I had tested almost many things. I checked properly and found as the time goes on Fences is bit more slower. It makes your job a bit complicated while working. While Rainmeter is different.

I am not sure there is a launcher type tool available for the same or not, but still the configuration part is much easier here. It is not all complicated to handle.

What I believe that it is not proper to add such type of tools on your system. Because slow system needs more resources when you launch applications or perform different work. At that point this apps can cause system slower and freeze in between.