DeskMakeover vs Nimi Places

DeskMakeover is a free Windows desktop customization app for changing icon appearance and arranging icons in zones drawn over wallpaper. It offers nine hand-tuned looks: Squircle, Blueprint, Pixel Era, Gleam, Glaze, Die-Cut, Porthole, Scrapbook, and Creekstone. Shape, coloring, plate, finish, and shortcut mark can be adjusted independently. For organization, users can choose Workbench or Quadrants templates or draw zones themselves, with five materials and four title styles. The studio mirrors the desktop live, supports undo and redo, and can reread icons, arrangement, and wallpaper in one click. Style combinations can be saved, exported as files, and imported as style packs. DeskMakeover snapshots the Windows desktop before changes and says each change can be undone with one click. It installs per-user and runs locally without an account, telemetry, or uploads, according to its maker. The app supports 64-bit Windows 10 version 1809 or newer and Windows 11, not macOS or Linux.

Nimi Places organizes a Windows desktop into customizable containers that display files and folders from chosen locations as icons or thumbnails. Files stay in their original locations while the containers provide desktop access. Views include grids and single- or multi-column lists, with optional details. Items can be labeled, searched by name and sorted by type, size or dates. Containers can use individual item sizes, accent colors, themes and smooth scrolling. Rules can duplicate, move or link files and folders that match selected conditions, and containers can appear only under conditions such as time, location or foreground window title. Supported media can be previewed through a built-in multimedia front end. The application is free for non-commercial use under the Nimi projects general application license. It can run portably, including from removable storage, without installation on a specific computer. The Windows download is a multilingual installer with optional portable mode and a built-in uninstaller. The download page lists a requirement compatible with framework 2.0 or newer. Its license says personal data must not be used with the software and assigns users responsibility for information they choose to process.