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Virtual Desktops on Windows?
raist_online asks: "After long years of X11 (and recently Mac OS X) I'm now in a job that mandates Windows and uses some Windows-only tools, providing us with XP Pro installs. Using VMWare with dual heads means I can still mostly live in X11-based goodness but I'm really missing a virtual desktop when I have to use Windows. The MS Powertoy doesn't really cut it for me and I've been trying out Cooldesk (some task-bar integration but not behaving well) and altdesk (which is OK but doesn't integrate into the task-bar). I'm really looking for something as simple as the standard X11 pager. Please note that I HAVE to use native Windows for some things so suggestions for Wine / VMWare inside Linux are missing the point. Slashdot, what are your suggestions?"
Get a new job then. If using Windows is more important than what you want to accomplish then maybe the job is too badly managed. It annoys me that many organisations place restrictions on technical solutions that the employee could make oneself; For example, it would be demotivating for me to be ordered to work with IE instead of Firefox (or Windows instead of UNIX :-) Not all employees are sheeps that have to be micromanaged. Some people are more than capable of making techical decisions without admins or technical support.
A company that mandates the use of a certain solution invariably develops an inability to address that segment of their market which exists outside of the dependency on that solution.
For example, a shipbuilder who mandates all hulls it builds to be sealed with a certain type of caulk will be unable to address the market for hulls built with a different kind of caulk.
In this example, to the extent that your company will be using Windows as its exclusive solution for whatever it is you are required to do, the company will be unable to access solutions outside of the Windows-centric method for doing this. If a better (or more appropriate) non-Windows solution becomes available, that solution will not exists within the 'toolbox' of solutions available to your company, placing it at a competitive disadvantage.
This 'one solution' strategy does have it's place, for example, if the only market for your solutions is among a customer base which exclusively demands those solutions. An example of this might be an electronics manufacturer demanding that all circuit pack manufacturing processes use CFC-free solvents in a market where legal requirements or market conditions specify this.
Such might be the case here if your company is developing a Windows-exclusive product or service for a Windows-exclusive market. However, I'd argue it's inappropriate here due to Microsoft's extensive dominance of their market. Essentially any Windows-exclusive solution eventually becomes a part of Windows itself, unless blocked by legal restraints (think: Quicken in money management) or abnormal market dynamics (think Symantic in anti-virus software). You company would be destined do be bought-out by Microsoft, on Microsoft's terms.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.