Windows 7 3D Themes (Free Iron Man – Jarvis UI)
A lot of people asked how to install those special Windows 7 3D themes, where to download them for free and what is needed to make them work. This guide is an attempt to answer all of your questions, which we will update throughout 2014 with additional material
Table of contents:
If you haven’t guessed it yet, let me point out that most of the 3D themes you see are 3rd-party applications. There are many apps that will simply put some cool 3D elements on your desktop or there are apps that actually give your desktop a 3D feeling, more about that later.
First Step: Installing Rainmeter on Windows 7 For Great 3D Themes / Elements
First of all, we are going to look for a suitable utility for our little 3D project. Rainmeter is a great tool and comes with a lot of great skins that are easy to install
When asked what type of install you want, select Standard (not portable). On the next screen you have two checkboxes, if you are on Windows 7 64-bit make sure the first one is checked:
After the installation has been completed you should now have something like this on your desktop:
Second: Finding A Great “3D” Theme For Rainmeter That Works on Windows 7!
1. Step Head over to http://scrollsofaryavart.deviantart.com/ and download the Jarvis Theme, which we will use for our 3D Windows 7 desktop. Alternatively, if you checked the screenshots below and didn’t like the look, then download this Iron Man theme instead
2. Step Next download the theme and if you use Chrome or Firefox you should see a file called ironman_jarvis_theme_version_2_by_scrollsofaryavart.rmskin. Double click it to install the theme
3. StepIf you correctly installed Rainmeter, you will be prompted to install this 3D Rainmeter theme. Hit the Install button to proceed
4. Step You may be prompted by your firewall to allow SkinInstaller.exe – confirm that (it’s safe/trusted)
5. Step Next, go back to your desktop and right-click on Rainmeter. Select the option Manage Skin
6. Step You should now have something like this. This Windows 7 “theme” already looks pretty cool. There are various 3D elements that make your desktop a little more fun. But Windows 7 and Rainmeter is capable of more! We can change our theme to have an animated 3D wallpaper and modify our existing Rainmeter widgets. In step 7-9, I’ll explain how to modify existing Rainmeter widgets.
Modifying Rainmeter Widgets
7. Step Next-right click on the Lifehacker widget and click Illustro/feeds and you will see a file called Feeds.ini. Open it with notepad or notepad++ and replace feedURL=http://feeds.gawker.com/lifehacker/full
with this feedURL=http://windows7themes.net/the-feed
8. Step Now right click again and select Refresh
9. Step You now should have our feed (just pointing this out if you would like to have this on your desktop)
11. Alright, now right-click on one of the existing dark elements that you want to REMOVE e.g. let’s say you want to remove all default items (the black widgets), simply right-click on it and select Unload skin
12. Next, you may want to add additional elements from the Iron Man skin. Simply right-click on one of the existing Iron Man widgets and select Iron Man => Slideshow => visuals_blue.ini (TIP: If you want a different color, simply select another .ini file)
13. Next, we are going to add the central Iron Man interface
14. You should have something like this. I selected a different wallpaper that is darker to get a better contrast:
15. Now we have a couple nice elements on our desktop that make it “appear” to be 3D, but the effect is rather unimpressive. To get that real “WOW” effect we need another program called Dreamscene
Download And Install Dreamscene For Enhanced 3D Themes on Windows 7
We previously explained how to install Dreamscene on Windows 7 for cool animated 3D themes and wallpapers. So, if the instructions do not work for you please follow all instructions in the linked tutorial
If you don’t know the difference between 32bit and 64bit Windows, read this tutorial:What Windows Version do I have, 32-bit or 64-bit?
a) If you are on Windows 7 32-bit:
- Download InstallDreamSceneWindows7_32bit.exe
- Run the installer
- InstallDreamSceneWindows7_32bit.exe and it will automatically copy the required files and modify your registry.
b) Should you be on Windows 7 64-bit:
- Download dreamscene64bit.zip
- Extract dreamscene64bit.zip
- Copy DreamScene.dll to C:\Windows\System32
- and DreamScene.dll.mui to C:\Windows\System32\en-US\.
- Double-click DScene.reg to add the registry keys.
- Restart explorer.exe or reboot.
1. Step When copying the files you will be prompted for admin privileges, so make sure you are logged into an administrator account. And be careful!
Also, if you are using a different locale than en-US then also copy the .dll.mui to your local folder
2. Step I am bored of restarting, so I usually open the task manager, end the process explorer.exe and then click on New -> and enter explorer.exe. Easy!
3. Step To make sure everything works, go to your desktop and right-click on it. You should see a greyed out item “Play Dreamscene”
4. Step Now, download a cool animated 3D MPG file. Either go to Youtube or Google to search for “dreamscene 3D”. We found a nice one on Youtube – an animated 3D asteroid field, very cool!
5. Step After downloading the MPG file, go to the location where it is stored and right-click on the file and select “Set As Desktop Background” as seen below:
Final Animated 3D Themes using Dreamscene and Rainmeter:
GREAT! The final result could look like this.
1. Step The Asteroid field (honestly, the Iron Man UI doesn’t go so well with this one)
2. Step The animated 3D stones and the yellow Iron Man UI are awesome. Check this out. Feel free to copy all of my ideas above and modify it.
I changed the color of the interface for a better contrast. Of course, you should now play around with settings, download different 3D wallpapers and themes, create your own MPG files to use as 3D wallpapers and so on. This will allow you to create your own personalized desktop with lots of useful informations like feeds, disk status, CPU load, IP address and much much more.
Installing 3D Clock
Next you could try to find more 3D elements for your new desktop. For example you could install this fancy 3D clock.
Also, check out some related tools for a true 3D desktop.
Related 3D Tools
If you know of any 3D tools, cool Windows 7 3D themes or have created any 3D wallpapers that should be on this list, let us know in the comments. Also, if you know of any nice tricks to tweak your desktop or any nice 3D tools that work great, post them below.
Didn’t work for me after step 5. manage skin did nothing and I followed the steps as above.
Hmm strange, Rainmeter usually works well on Windows 7
Is it possible that you have multiple monitors and it’s on another monitor or behind some other windows?
When you click on “manage skin” you can go through all “widgets” and click the button “load” or “unload” to activate or deactivate elements
Try to reinstall Rainmeter and see if any other skins work
I couldn’t download Rainmeter correctly. Kept getting an error about not being able to open the application. Any advise? Please help!
Well, I think there are many Rainmeter mirrors – simply google Rainmeter Mirror Download
Many thanks took a little getting used to,but now my desktop with the 3 monitors looks like something from the future thanks for this TUT.
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab306/worldwide7477/Mydesktop_zpsca5d1839.png
Hi, how can i play music using music interface?
also centre interface shows values 1 to some 29, i thought they are shortcuts so i tried to set them but did not work, what are those values and how can we use them?
@Vaibhav
open the IronMan folder and u will find a file named UserVariables.inc. open this and you can modify your values of your shortcuts.
as for the music, u can run itunes and winamp only through the respective gadgets…
wtf? at step 7 my lifehacker is gone!
I downloaded raimeter but when i download any skins it will not install them the only widgets i have are the tree 4 that were standard. I looked for the skins everywhere but none were available. I am using windows 7. I tried the sugestions belong but no luck. Any suggestions?
I downloaded rainmeter and installed it and it loaded. How ever I am unable to figure out how to modify the widgets to get them to display the correct info. Such as I am unable to get the weather app to display the temp or weather for my location. Please help!
Tonya, you need to right-click on the weather widget, click Edit Skin and then modify the variables
1. Click Edit Skin

2. Go to weather.com and enter your city NOT the zip and then you will see something like this
3. From the URL address bar copy the code
4. Now go back to the open text file and search for
[Current] and URL=
5. After replacing the weather code this is what it should like
6. Now right-click on the skin again and click Refresh
7. Now you should have a nice weather skin on your Iron Man themed desktop
Cheers!
can you help me i have no idea how to modify my users variables can you please post some examples? i have also a problem downloading dreamscene64bit.zip
jasper, you managed to open the variables text file right?
1. Open Explorer and go to C:\Users\(yourusername)\Documents\Rainmeter\Skins\Iron Man
2. Now Open the file UserVariables.inc with a Notepad editor like Notepad++
3. Next change the appname variables. For example if you want one button for the task manager, call it “Task Manager”, one for iTunes call “iTunes” or whatever. It does not have to be lowercase
4. Hit CTRL + S to save the notepad txt file
5. Now go back to your desktop with the active Iron Man skin and right-click on value1 and select Edit skin
6. Scroll all the way down and find APPS and then replace the stuff between the quotes with an actual path
7. Rainmeter supports various shell commands, shortcuts and even registry keys, for the full list click here
8. You should now be able to modify the “FOLDERS” and “WEBLINKS” in the same way
9. WHEN YOU ARE DONE, right-click on the skin and click “Refresh skin”
I hope this helps to clarify what you have to do to add aditional programs, folders, etc
i can’t download the theme please help me . if you can send me a link. thank you.
the downloaded theme file in my chrome is not downloaded in .rmskin format and is not opening in rainmeter what to do?
You can try to rename it to rmskin – what file extension do you see when you download the theme?
Hello oliversk.
First of all, thank you for this post, it was very enlightning.
Second, I’d like to ask your help. So far I have been able to figure out everything by myself and I have only one problem left. The “buttons” section of my central interface, I can’t seem to change their names. I have looked on this thread but I can’t find the solution you have appointed, because I don’t have the “uservariables” file (I did not download the theme from the link you have given).
Thanks in advance
Hello again.
Nevermind my previous comment, I had downloaded the not-updated version.
But now that I have the up to date version it seems I cannot get my location’s temperature in Celsius. DO you know how to change that?
how will i install this while using x86?
ar, all of this is compatible with Windows 7 32-bit, what is your problem exactly?
why not just download Madonna Virtual Assistant and finally have your own Jarvis instead of download so many themes :o
The Prowler file is damaged and cannot be extracted
How can I change the weather app to show weather for Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. I’ve tried according to your tutorial above but still couldn’t get the result that I want. Maybe I did wrong somewhere. Please help.
how do I add and/or play music in jarvis_iTunes?
how do you switch the itunes player to windows media player
Hey guys, i have this running pretty well on my PC, orgasmic for an iron man fan :P, I have the Weather codes for Australia at http://edg3.co.uk/snippets/weather-location-codes/australia/
If anyone needs it, also I need help on the interface getting the values to be loaded as shortcuts how can that happen?
Cheers guys
I like Google chrome but when i click on facebook the browser will be mozilla firefox! How can I change it?
simon, take a good look at the Rainmeter documentation, shortcuts are explained there
Doroel, you need to set Chrome as your default browser. You can do that within Chrome’s settings. You can follow this tutorial
http://windows7themes.net/how-to-make-chrome-your-default-browser.html
@everyone: If you want to further customize the theme, I suggest you also read this
You need to edit the file UserVariables.inc
C:\Users\(yourusername)\Documents\Rainmeter\Skins\SKIN FOLDER
@oliversk I just started this last night, so forgive me if my questions are dumb. Thank you so much for the screen shots. They have helped out a ton! I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. Pretty Awesome stuff.
How do you get the visual skin to go to a particular folder for the photos? Also, the stock RainMeter System and Disk is there a way to make those JARVIS? Thank you!
i cant get the themes in the lifehacker widjet….it replies n/a after refreshing……….help!!!!!!!!
Rapper, please be a bit more precise – it’s possible that it does not work with your internet setup. Also make sure the URL in the config file is correct
I made a few addons for this UI myself to add to it but I dont know how to upload them on this site…
I have made a RAMusage meter, CPUmeter, network meter (from the itunes and winamp but then seperately) and a few adds that are copied and seperated from other adds.
this project is to good but the lifehacker tab isn;t showing in my dekstop what do i do
I believe centigrade is not supported properly
Will this work with Windows 8.1 pro 32 bit?
Huzefa, Rainmeter works on Windows 8.1, so yes.
how can i add photos to visuals widget it displays nothing??