Windows 7: Virtual desktop in 7...

johngalt · 04 Aug 2009

Holo, you're not the village idiot - if anything, the folks who coined the terms should be referred to a village idiots.

Virtual Desktops are as Zidane mentions - multiple desktops that can be doing different tasks simultaneously. Think of it as a person with 1 monitor actually having 4 virtual monitors - monitor 1 is running an email app full screen, monitor 2 is running a browser full screen, monitor 3 is playing a video, and monitor 4 is currently empty - something like that. Now, this user can switch from virtual desktop 1 (aka monitor 1) to virtual desktop 2 (aka monitor 2) and so on.

Virtualization of the desktop, screen , and operating systems is, in fact, similar, but they operate at very different levels. VMWare, VBox, and Virt PC give you a virtual operating system - not just another copy of your screen, but the entire OS.

Zidane24 · 04 Aug 2009

Quote: Originally Posted by johngalt

Holo, you're not the village idiot - if anything, the folks who coined the terms should be referred to a village idiots.

Virtual Desktops are as Zidane mentions - multiple desktops that can be doing different tasks simultaneously. Think of it as a person with 1 monitor actually having 4 virtual monitors - monitor 1 is running an email app full screen, monitor 2 is running a browser full screen, monitor 3 is playing a video, and monitor 4 is currently empty - something like that. Now, this user can switch from virtual desktop 1 (aka monitor 1) to virtual desktop 2 (aka monitor 2) and so on.

Virtualization of the desktop, screen , and operating systems is, in fact, similar, but they operate at very different levels. VMWare, VBox, and Virt PC give you a virtual operating system - not just another copy of your screen, but the entire OS.

Indeed...the terms are incorrect...makes a very confusing scenario

spidernet · 05 Aug 2009

Agree with johngalt... He's actually right. VBox emulates PCs, Virtual Desktop Managers emulate monitors... You can run diffirent applications on every desktop. Run browser on desktop 1, run player on desktop 2, etc. Modern Virtual Desktop Managers supports also diffirent wallpapers, shortcuts, resolution for each desktop(e.g. Crystal Desktop).

Winphreak · 07 Sep 2009

Was reading over this post, and found out some disappointing news. nView (Nvidia card program) had multiple desktop functions, and they worked really well, BUT they are only supported on Quadro (aka super expensive) Video Cards for Vista/7.

But if you do have a Quadro, nView should work really well for you.

johngalt · 07 Sep 2009

IIRC, wasn't nView offered with all video cards that supported dual monitors in XP, but then they restricted it to Quadros when Vista came out?

Winphreak · 08 Sep 2009

You do recall correctly.
I had used nView with XP for a while, and it did a nice job of handling full screen apps and making sure it didn't bog down the system. But, possibly because of Aero, that had to restrict it to Quadro video cards, which makes some sense. Quadros were intended for AutoCAD and large amounts of content, so they focus less on raw speed and more on memory (4GB GDDR3 on the latest one, according to wikipedia.)

johngalt · 08 Sep 2009

I knew I had used nView before.

My last build was a P4 2.0 GHz (Northwood CPU with the double L2 cache @ 512 KB) and a GeForce 4 MX 440 (made by Visiontek - yes, they used to make nVidia cards) that I used with dual 19" monitors - one was a ViewSonic Graphics Series GS 790 and the other was a Philips 109B Flat face (not flat screen, just an additional screen that was flat), and I remember trying to figure out the one thing that was missing - the second taskbar.

I built that machine back in 2002, and ever since then I was obsessed with a taskbar on every monitor - and I still, to this day, have to run 3rd party software to achieve this!

zigx · 17 Sep 2009

Sysinternals Desktops may work.

Perhaps not as functional as other apps as its limited to 4 desktops, and you can't easily move apps between windows (eg OSX Leopard) but it works for me and it's FREE.

Winphreak · 18 Sep 2009

Thanks for the link, Zigx.

This reminds me of the Virtual Desktop Powertoy for XP... which it looks like it IS the same thing, just redone a bit for Vista/7.

But it does work. All subsequent desktops run Basic theme, but I'm sure my video card couldn't handle multiple aeros running anyhow.

NaviRahu · 18 Sep 2009

As I haven't played with this yet... How well do virtual desktops work if you already have multiple monitors? I used virtual desktops when I had only one monitor, but as I currently have a (semi) clean install of Windows right now, I don't want to install more than what I need, and especially if it might mess with the dual-monitor system I currently have.

Windows 7: Virtual desktop in 7...

Virtual desktop in 7... problems?