There are a few non-theme related parameters that determine how SysMetrix acts. They are:

Display confirmations . With this on, it asks you if you're sure before doing several things like removing themes or emptying the recycle bin.

Startup Automatically. This adds a startup option to your registry so that SysMetrix runs automatically every time your machine starts up.

Anti-alias clock hands. This can be turned on or off. When on, the clock hands are nice and smooth instead of jaggy. You'd probably only want to turn this off if it causes SysMetrix to do too much work to anti-alias the hands and blend them into the background.

Update interval. You can configure how often SysMetrix will update the display. It can range from a fraction of a second to a full minute. Note that the more frequently it updates, the more work it performs and the more CPU time it will require. An update time of one second is usually sufficient.

Empty recycle bin on double click. If a theme supplies a dual-state graphic for the recycle bin, then double clicking on the image will cause the recycle bin to be emptied.

Delete unused fonts from theme directory when saving. When this is turned on, SysMetrix will automatically delete any unused fonts that may exist in the theme's directory from a previous save. If it's off, SysMetrix will simply ensure that the fonts used in the theme exist in the theme directory without bothering to remove any extra fonts.

Use theme-specific positioning. This option forces SysMetrix to retain the individual locations of each theme on the desktop. Therefore, you can have one theme automatically position itself on the bottom of the desktop when loaded, another position itself on the right side when loaded, etc. This makes it easier to integrate SysMetrix with a particular skin suite or layout.

Positioning. Where it is on your desktop. You can also specify negative values to indicate the placement is based off of the bottom right - ala LiteStep.

Dragability. With this you can determine whether you're allowed to move it on the screen by dragging and dropping it somewhere.

Always visible. This allows you to set SysMetrix to always be on top of other windows applications

Autohide. This is cool, and yet a slight bit tricky and may take getting used to. Having this on means that SysMetrix will disappear when you move the mouse over it. This is handy if it's set to always be visible, as you can get to the application underneath it just by moving the mouse over it. However, this does pose a problem if you *want* to click on SysMetrix. In that case, simply hold down the CONTROL, SHIFT, or ALT key before moving the mouse over it and it won't disappear.

Transparency. If you're running on Windows 2000 or XP, you can adjust SysMetrix's transparency level. It ranges from 0% transparent (fully opaque) to 95% transparent (almost see-though). Transparency probably makes it use more CPU. I think that your graphics card/drivers determine this, but I am only guessing.

Atomic Clock synchronization. This allows you to specify whether SysMetrix should synch your PC's clock to the correct time and or date. It allows you to select a schedule of how often the clock should be synchronized, and allows you to test the connection to a particular NTP server. You can also perform a synch at any time via the right-click menu.

Email accounts. This allows you to setup multiple POP-based email accounts for SysMetrix to monitor. You can configure whether or not to check for new mail and how often. These will only be used if the theme is monitoring email message statistics. 

Launch Email application on double click. If a theme supplies a dual-state graphic for email messages, then double clicking on the image will launch the program of your choice.

Don't run multiple copies. With this checked, double-clicking on the email messages dual-state image will only run a new copy of the specified application if there isn't a copy of it already running. If it is already running, the double-click will cause that instance of the application to come to the foreground, even if it was minimized.

Clear account totals after running application. With this checked, the email statistics such as message count and size will be cleared after the email client application is launched.  Typically the email client will retrieve the unread messages from the server after launch, so this is a quick way to keep SysMetrix's information regarding unread messages more accurate without having to re-poll the mail servers.

Sounds. This allows you to optionally set .wav files that can be played for an hourly chime and when there are unread email messages available. There's also a basic scheduler that allows you to disable the sounds during a particular timeframe of the day. This can be useful if you don't want your computer making noise during the night. In that case, simply set it to disable the sounds from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM or whatever works best for you.

Play sound with unread email option. After SysMetrix polls the POP server(s) and determines that you have unread email, it will compare the number of unread emails for this query to the number of unread emails that existed on the server the last time that it polled. If the numbers are the same, it assumes that you don't have any new unread emails compared to the last time that it checked. If this is the case, you can configure SysMetrix to avoid playing the email sound file to avoid being "nagged" about the unread email (since it's already alerted you about it once before).

Network Adapter selection. This give you a list of the network cards available on your system and allows you to select which one will be monitored if the theme reports network statistics. If the network is being monitored, then the about box will display further information about the selected network adapter.

Samples for TCP Averaging. When reporting TCP bytes going in or out of the network card, you can choose between the actual value at that point in time or an average of the number of bytes over a short amount of time. This number determines the amount of time that the bytes are averaged over for the latter option. The number of samples can range from two to ten. Choosing a larger number will make the statistic "smoother" in that its rate of change won't fluctuate as much. Choosing a smaller number will make the statistic be more accurate, but it may have a lot more "spikes" and isn't a good way to measure throughput.