The I.T Massive!

On a day to day basis I use several operating systems and one thing I do miss when I use Windows is Virtual Desktops (known as Spaces on the Mac). One program that can bring this functionality to Windows is one from Microsoft's Sysinternals division.

Desktops allows you to switch desktops by either clicking on the system tray icon and selecting the desktop you want or by setting hotkeys. I have included screenshots below demonstrating this.

I have only tested Desktops on Windows XP so far but it does work on Vista and you can even install it on Windows Server 2003 or higher. I haven't tried it out yet on Windows 7 either but when I do I'll update this post.

There are some good points as well as some limitations. It's very light (it's only a 62KB download) and I have not noticed any significant slowdown using it. Some of the limitations are that you can't drag Windows from one desktop to another, you can only have up to four desktops and some system tray applications can only be seen on the first desktop. There are more good and bad points but you can have a look over them on the Sysinternals website.

To download Desktops and to find out more check out this page: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx

Here are a few pics of Desktops in action.

Desktops virtual desktop selection screen:

Desktops options screen: