Virtual desktop in 7...

johngalt said:

Good question - I haven't actually tried any of the items listed here since I also have dual screens - but since my laptop is now a clean installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit, I figure it is time to start playing ... again.

I'll let you know in a day or so.

I look forward to it! I'd play a little more if this weren't my work and school computer as well. lol

Winphreak said:

The Sysinternals program that was recently mentioned seems to "duplicate" a desktop. As in, switching to another desktop, whatever program is running on that desktop ONLY shows up on that desktop (even in systray). Which prompts to guess that it depends on your setup. If you have two monitors set to "stretch" your desktop, then when you toggle to the next desktop, it'll be a 'clean slate' on both of them. However, if you have them set up as separate entitites somehow, then I have no idea what would happen were you to use Zigx's mentioned program.

Having two blank slates might be useful. Particularly since I'm currently studying graphic design, and have a tendency to do a million things at once. It'd certainly be less clutter.

Hi there

The old Microsoft desktop switche from SYSINTERNALS was fine (XP only) but these days using more than one REAL monitor is fine - once you get the hang of it the two monitors (or 4 if you have dual head video cards) are just "One extended space" so you just drag the image to the 2nd monitor and by clicking the mouse you can start working on that monitor.

Extremly good when you want to use a 19 / 22 inch monitor with a laptop.

I'm not so sure these days if "Virtual desktops" are such a great idea anymore when you can use REAL monitors to do the same thing -- even a 19 inch extra monitor (often with a TV tuner built in so no need for extra TV cards) can be purchased really cheaply now.

Cheers
jimbo

With "Sysinternals Desktops" each "Virtual Desktop" behaves as if it were distinct from the others (ie it's not just one big desktop that you see bits of at a time).

As Winphreak mentioned above, only Desktop1 uses Aero.

The taks bar only shows apps in the current desktop and you can only alt-tab between apps on your current desktop, however Task Manager will show all tasks on all desktops. Each desktop has it's own task bar and all the desktop icons are present on each desktop.

When you connect to an external monitor, it "grows" each desktop to fill both screens (same as if without "Desktops"). Again each external view is distinct from the others so if you have 4 desktops and 2 monitors you have 8 screens to fill with apps! Also, the screen resolutions for both monitors are replicated on all desktops so if you change it in one it changes the others.

Note that some popups (eg task bar alerts and program crash alerts) pop up only in the first desktop, regardless of which desktop you are on, so if something crashes, check desktop 1. However, the "You Have Mail" sound should play as normal even if your mail app is on another desktop.


ZX

BTW: I'm running Windows 7 on 17" MacBook Pro...
What I really desire is MacOSX Leopard - Spaces, but I don't want to reboot

Hi there
With these types of apps the SIMPLEST is usually the best option -- the new sysinternals one seems to work just fine (4 deskstops and easily switchable between them) and on W7 x-64 as well. It's a pure basic desktop switcher so very tiny -- note each desktop is a separate process so you can't "copy" apps from one desktop to the other as each desktop is a separate "Explorer" process -- however it does "exactly what it says on the tin" and is ideal if you want to keep applications separate on different desktops -- desn't either crash like more "feature" enabled applications do.


I tried Virtua win but you get problems in W7 X-64 when setting the desktop switching keys so I uninstalled it.

dexpot also random problems.

All in all the sysinternals one is best "cheap (free) and cheerful". Does what it says it does.

Cheers
jimbo

I just came upon this topic, in part because I was seeking a virtual desktop solution for Windows 7 64-bit when my Stardock Virtual Desktop/BandVWM (from the Object Desktop package) no longer worked.

It was a lightweight, very fast, highly capable virtual desktop system with a taskbar-embedded set of virtual desktop views, each showing its own non-minimized apps. I could easily drag and drop a window from one virtual desktop to another, send them all to a single desktop, etc. Quick to view and navigate.

Stardock's application works fine under Windows 7 32-bit (despite a warning during installation), but fails to start under 64-bit. They are blaming the UAC model for why they are not developing a new version that specifically supports Windows 7, but I don't find that fully reasonable an explanation.

From the nicely compiled list above, I tried Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager and it seemed to work fine, though its default behavior seems to keep different apps in different virtual desktops, which includes apps that are minimized. I tend to restore windows or move apps from one desktop to another for ease of editing/comparison needs, so this style of separating desktops didn't work out for me. Some apps wanted to become restored again and flashed in the task bar when switching to "their" desktop, which was a minor hassle. But, it seemed solid and didn't cause system problems from what I could see.

Will be interested in further reviews from folks, as I'm going to try VirtuaWin and Crystal Desktop next.

- wader