Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Which Multiple Desktop Tool For Windows 7?
First time accepted submitter asadsalm writes "MacOS has spaces. Windows had no out-of-the-box utility for multiple virtual desktops. Which Multiple Desktop Tool should one use on Windows 7? Sysinternals Desktops, mdesktop, Dexpot, Virtual Dimension, VirtuaWin, Finestra are the few options that I have shortlisted." So, if you use both Windows and multiple desktops, what's your favorite method?
At least, they gave a bit of an X feel to Windows 3.1
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Then why answer the question? To hear yourself speak?
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881
Seems to work pretty well and fast in my limited use.
This space for rent.
Mac OS X is a Unix (BSD) variant.
Sysinternals Desktops mentions some limitations up front. I don't remember whether I've tried any of the others.
And that's why Linux users still have such a reputation for being such insufferable sanctimonious assholes.
I've been using GoScreen for years and years. It is perfect.
http://www.goscreen.info/
I have tried Sysinternals, Dexpot, and Virtual Dimension. But I am a pretty die-hard fan of VirtuaWin at this point. All other multiple desktop managers have been too slow, bloaty, cause problems with some windows, or just don't have the right features, (which for me is keyboard control and simple ways to move windows from one desktop to another). VirtuaWin wins on speed and stability alone.
For a simple system that's pretty much completely hidden from users who don't know about it, Dexpot is hard to beat. Fully configurable keyboard shortcuts for fast switching, moving and copying windows, permanent assigning of windows/programs to certain desktops, and a bunch of plugins (I don't use any of 'em, but they're there if you need/want them) for visual effects and Win7 taskbar integration and such... It's pretty slick.
And most importantly - it's blazing fast.
No the guy is a roll. The person didn't want to go away from Windows. He was asking which of the options he.listed was better. Captain Aspergers was just bring an asshole.
What about the virtual desktop software built into the nvidia drivers? I looked around and nothing came close for me.
But it got nerfed into Mission Control in Lion 10.7 and is half-functional. You can't rename, reorder, arrange, or configure your "spaces" anymore. Shortcut keys still work for now...
They'll probably finish it off in Mountain Goat (10.8) since iOS is perfect and has no desktops so surely Mac OS X doesn't need them either.
*snarl*
<script>alert("I never liked JavaScript, really; it just seemed a bad idea.");</script>
As an answer, I've used Virtual Dimensions and Dexpot a lot. Last I used one, I preferred Dexpot.
Now, a slight variant of the question. Are there any truly multi-monitor aware virtual desktops. I mainly am looking for the ability to run the two screens as independent virtual desktops and change them independently.
Working as a desktop support with 30+ windows/apps open at the time calls for virtual desktops, I have tried Sys internals desktops - fail, tried VirtuaWin and haven't look for any other replacement. Can have virtual desktops setup as I like, can have one window shown at all desktops, another window always at the top etc. etc. The best tool I have used :) Did i mention that virtuawin is packaged as a portable app (portableapps) = even easier to deploy and use when you are unprivileged user.
I bumped into something that somewhat sounds like what you're looking for awhile back.
I was looking around the Catalyst Control Center and found something called HydraVision, which to my knowledge, allows multiple desktops.
Someone who's actually used this will have to confirm though.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Despite its age, it solves the problem beautifully and efficiently. If there is anything with the same flexibility and functionality (including edge-scroll, please) for Win 7, I definitely want to know. While I work mostly under Linux, sometimes it has to be Windows, and screen-clutter is a real issue there. I should also say that with less than 3x2 (better 3x3) desktops, I am not really happy.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Multiple desktops are sometimes useful, but what I would really like on Windows is the ability to pin applications so they are "always on top". If anyone has any suggestions for that, I'd be very pleased to know about them.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
I've been using it for several months now under pretty heavy load. I use 4 desktops with 3 applications that are persistent across all 4 desktops, as well as a unique application on each desktop. I switch across desktops constantly (see every couple of minutes or less) throughout the day. It is lightweight, efficient, and has never caused me a problem/crashed/etc, even though it is still technically a beta (I think). It works just like a virtual desktop should, as far as I'm concerned.
Why am I not just doing it in linux you ask? Because work requires me to be in windows... :P
The best answer to questions often invalidate the question's assumptions. For instance (while daring hyperbole) "How can I cut down on beating my wife?" is a flawed question because it presumes that a "lesser" quantity of wife beating will make it okay.
In applicaiton to current circumstances, trying to patch a "multiple desktop" abstraction onto Windows is tehcnically probelematic because the underlying OS is -not- intended to support that modality. It can be done, but it has some very negative corner cases and it consists of making the display "lie about" the underlying condition of the system.
To compare and contrast:
Since the various windows in a X-server implementation are -factually- distinct all the way back to the OS-level process abstraction, the practical mechanics of de-realizing the window (withdrawing it from the display without destroying it) is a real, first-class operation. This is true even before considering things like staring multiple X-servers on different virtual terminals etc. That is, under linux you can make semantic -or- programatic desktops, or both, to acheive the "multiple desktop" effect.
Since Windows uses a common event queue to post information to all windows, and that event queue goes all the way to the bone in the OS (it is the same event queue that, say, asynchronous IO events are returned with), the windows cannot be de-realized, they can only be hidden. So in this case the "multiple desktops" are illusory. This may be good enough for casual work, but it is terrible if you need to actually isolate actions between the actual "desktops". One of the primary symptoms of this is that in the Windows virtual desktops, windows "on desktop X" can spontaniously reassert themselves onto whatever desktop (e.g. desktop Y) you are seeming to view. Hidden modal windows can seize things up oddly and so forth.
So while the original poster, it may safely be assumed, was being troll-like in tone, he wasn't particularly incorrect.
(Of course the identical troll, with no explination, occured to me when I read the main article... I just held it in... because someone already had it covered... 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
http://windowspager.sourceforge.net/
Its a lightweight free one that stays on your taskbar, like the linux ones I am used to. You can move windows either by dragging or right-clicking on the title bar. My favourite feature is "keep on top" that I have become dependent on with my linux desktop. :)
PS to run it, just run it. To make it run every time, put a shortcut in the "startup" folder.
Get a video card that supports multiple monitors and hook them to a KVM switch. All the software implementations I have used have been so buggy that I stopped using them after a few weeks.
Yeah, people like that make the rest of us look bad. I'm a Linux user and if Windows works well for you, I wish you the best.
The problem with assholes is that they're fucking loud, and they drown out the rest of us. I simply use Linux most of the time and thus don't really know the best answer to this question, so I keep my mouth shut.
Always remember that there's usually a silent majority that just doesn't have time for the bullshit.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I've been using goScreen (http://www.goscreen.info/) for this purpose for years. I'm not sure how it stacks up to the other utilities you mentioned, but it is highly customizable. My current configuration allows me to use the window map to switch desktops by holding control and dragging my mouse to the right edge of the screen, and I can also switch to any application currently running on any desktop by right clicking on the right edge of the screen. There are of course, tons of other ways you can configure and use the program. I'd wager it can be set up to match almost any desktop switching environment you are currently accustomed to.
There are however a few downsides. For one it's not free, in either sense of the word. For another, it breaks Windows 7's desktop slideshow feature, switching you to an unsaved theme with only one wallpaper in the rotation every time a program changes your desktop resolution. Last but not least, every time you switch desktops, it changes the order of the windows in the taskbar. None of these are major issues for me, although I do really wish they'd get fixed at some point.
Windows has it built in. Go to the start menu, do "switch user", and, bingo! A whole new desktop...
No sig today...
Mission Control, née Spaces / Expose, is not just about desktops. Multiple desktops are cool and all, but the better part is what used to be called Expose. Hit F9, and you get a choice of all apps running; select the window you want. Hit F10, and you get a choice of all windows from the current app. To me, that's way more useful than multiple desktops. I don't even bother keeping my desktop neat, anymore. I get the screen I want with one key, one click.
Dexpot kind-of works like that on Windows, but not as smooth. It also had issues with screen locking, but that might be just my machine.
I couple of years ago I was in your position. I went looking for the best Windows desktop manager. I was coming from a Linux / X world and was spoiled with my rich desktop environment, but I am stuck with my corporate laptop with Windows XP. I looked at a few multiple desktop tools and VirtuaWin was the best and most stable for me. The other tool I tried for a while was the tool from Microsoft, but it was worthless.
The features I use most are
- Switch desktop (dah!!) (using Windows Key + Left/Right)
- Move Window to another desktop (via mouse clicks on desktop tray)
- Keep window on top (via mouse clicks on title bar... very handy)
- Always show Window (via mouse click on title bar)
I don't expect much of my desktop switching tool, just that it has the above functionality. It does have one bug that crops up 2 or 3 times a year, and that's that all the windows will appear on one desktop, even hidden windows that should never be seen as a window, like desktop tray items. I am just presuming this is a VirtuaWin bug, but I can live with it.
Sometimes when a process that is linked to a window is under heavy CPU load (like Excel sometimes) VirtuaWin won't be able to handle the Window very well. I think this is more of a MS Windows problem than a VirtuaWin problem, and this issue was extremely bad with the MS Multi Desktop tool.
The developer does not seem to be making updates very frequently, but there are no features or bugs I need fixed.
Because there is no company "behind linux" pushing it into "marketing". This creates a catch-22 where people don't develop the "popularist crap" for linux because there is no market share, and "average" people don't buy the linux systems because there is no "crapware" for it.
Also, of course, since the big makers (Dell, Gateway, etc) are enjoined from selling linux-equipped desktop machines under penalty of losing their Microsoft OEM licenses, there are no "sales figures" for Linux Desktop Systems period. Microsoft "owns" the channels from which Linux Desktop Systems would emerge into actual conciousness.
Finally, -every- topic, user community, position, and theory has its share of insufferable sanctimonious assholes. Your use of the "Or" in your missive established a false dichotomy. You don't have to be -wrong- to be an I.S.A. 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Both ati and nvidia have virtual desktop apps for their cards, nview and i think hydravision
Make a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
How is it the right answer to tell someone who develops and maintains C#.net applications built for Windows and compiled with VS2010 to use Linux?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I am primarily a Linux user and rarely boot into Windows but when I do, I use LiteStep. Well, I used to. I only recently converted my Windows install from Windows XP to Windows 7 and haven't tried it on Windows 7 yet.
http://litestep.info/
It may not be exactly what you're looking for. It gives you an entirely different desktop look and feel. It's modeled after the NeXTSTEP desktop so if you're an AfterStep user in the Unix world, LiteStep would be the Windows equivalent. It does offer multiple desktops which was one of its primary attractions for me. It crashed like mad on Windows 98 but was rock solid for me on Windows 95 and Windows XP. The only current support for Windows 7 is in an experimental build you may want to try out. It looks like the project may have stalled but it might still be worth looking into.
If they really agreed a desktop pager would be in the OS.
The call you cite goes back to Win 2k, but 11 years later we still have no official Microsoft support. If you follow your own citation and become "historically aware" -and- read the call description, you will realize that this call -does- create a desktop, but its intended use is to create the desktop you get when you have logged in using control-alt-delete etc.
That is, it doesn't create a "virtual desktop" within the existing framework of display objects for an active user with an active desktop, it creates "a new desktop" as the instance of the regular old desktop that the user gets when he logs in.
You will also notice that it allocates "the desktop" from "the shared heap common to all desktops". This is an example of how the Window archetecture useses common intermingled resources all the way to the bone, as I stated. One of hte reasons that Wndows is so poor at security is that these common resource pools let programs "peek over the fence" or "toss data over the fence" at each other.
So contemplate how "CreateDesktop" and "CreateVirtualDesktop" would be different calls... Blindly providing citations to similar seeming API entry points does not a platfrom technology prove.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Christ almighty. The OP asked specifically about a solution for Windows. Most of the posts at this point are from the usual sad bastards who think 'Linux' is the answer to any question. For a Windows user, scrubbing the entire work environment and starting again with an unfamiliar or just plain unsuitable OS is not a solution in any universe. You lot do nothing to help your cause at all.
Ok, most Linux WMs have a virtual desktop manager built in, the Gnome one (or even the CDE one going back to HPUX or Solaris) are perfectly adequate, but for a Windows user you might as well suggest kicking themselves repeatedly in the nuts if that's the only advice you have to offer. Windows doesn't have a virtual desktop option built in, but Linux does, awesome, that's 1:0 to Linux but still totally fucking useless.
For my part, I've been looking for a similar solution. I've played with one or two but not found anything particularly useful. The OP's post was useful in itself in that he posted links to the ones he's checked out himself. A quick look suggests that Virtual Dimension looks good - I'll be checking this out myself. I have 3 monitors, two of which are generally dedicated to email and my knowledge base. PuTTY sessions generally sprinkled across the three. Being able to switch my entire screen environment for particular tasks would be useful.
Extra info for Linux fucktards: I'm a 20-year Linux admin and systems programmer who pretty much HATES Unix window managers and prefers Windows as my main desktop platform. I've used lots of Unix desktops and frankly they're mostly a disaster in my opinion.
And those of you who have posted useful info in response to the OP's question: thanks, very useful.
According to the Open Group which owns the trademark Unix: OS X is Unix. What is your criteria of Unix, by the way?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Personally I use blackbox for windows, although you need to spend a lot of time configuring your UI the way you want it. The default is abysmal for anyone who is used to the traditional windows UI, it's possible to get it to be pretty close to the traditional windows UI (except better).
There are many versions of blackbox for windows. The one I use is bb4win:
http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/
Will someone please tell me that using Linux doesn't necessarily mean you have to act like an asshole? Or maybe there something about gnome or kde that requires it or something?
It's like the 15 year old boy who is getting ready to go to his first prom and pick up his date and asks his mom if he looks OK and his mom says, "You should have gotten a haircut. I know that's not the answer you likely wanted to hear, but unfortunately, I don't have any answers you want to hear. Plus, you're too young to be dating."
He learns very quickly never to ask his mom anything serious again.
I really don't want people to learn that you really shouldn't ask Linux users for any computer advice because it's more likely you're going to hear about their ideological stance than anything actually useful. Not that changing from Windows to Linux couldn't be useful, but maybe we shouldn't assume that the person asking the question is completely clueless about the relative merits of Linux vs Windows and has other reasons that he needs to use Windows and if he is completely clueless about the relative merits of Linux vs Windows than maybe it means the Linux community has work to do besides belittling someone who comes to you with an honest question.
"I'm having trouble playing this Black Keys CD on my new Linux system, do you think you could help me set up audio on this system? I think I may have done something wrong."
"No, I won't help you, because you shouldn't listen to retro, derivative crap like the Black Keys, you should be listening to Zed Bias or Datsik. If you want my help, first get a clue about good music."
"Gee, what an asshole. I might as well go back to Windows Vista so I don't have to deal with jackoffs like him."
You are welcome on my lawn.
Maybe you should grow up a bit and quit treating computers as a sodding religion.
I have used AltDesk since around 2001. It was the closest I could find to the old FVWM pager and easily allows apps to be moved from one desktop to the other.
Or maybe you shouldn't assume that everyone's needs are the same as yours.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Eh? Do you actually know the slightest thing you're talking about?
The kernel is a modified Mach kernel, a descendent of BSD Unix - unlike Linux, which has no code inherited from Unix at all. The userspace is almost entirely the FreeBSD userspace, with plenty of GNU tools thrown on top. The only thing that remins from the proprietary OS released in 1984 is the overall look of it. Other than the graphics layers, OSX is very much an updated version of Next. OS1-9 were very definitely nothing to do with Unix. OSX is Unix, unlike Linux which is merely Unix-like. Sure, it doesn't use X, but X doesn't make something Unix.
Sure. Don't use GNOME 3 ;)
In Windows Seven, I've been using Dexpot, and it does almost everything I want.
However, It's unfortunate that Jan Tomasek's "sdesk" application no longer works. He stopped working on it a little more than a decade ago, and it continued to work all the way through WinXP, but now it just fails to work in Win7. For desktop managers on Windows, that was my favorite. Dexpot works pretty well, but it still is missing a couple of features that worked well in sdesk.
I liken people who take this subject as seriously as you to people who should find more meaningful causes to pursue. Seriously, Microsoft have acted like an unpleasant multinational - because they are - and Apple have acted like an unpleasant multinational - because they are - and if Ubuntu or Red Hat became big enough they'd act like unpleasant multinationals. And in the meantime, life goes on and we use whichever OS suits us at that moment without getting into flamewars online...
No offense meant, not really, but this isn't a religion. There are good things about Windows - application support for the most part, as others have said in this thread, but also the fact that on the right hardware even Vista is a nice OS (and heavily maligned, not least because it was generally launched onto the *wrong* hardware, and that not least because Microsoft pretty much lied about what it would work on - like I say, they're an unpleasant multinational), and 7 is basically stable and entirely usable. There are also horrible things about Windows. There are good things about Linux, and there are horrible things about Linux. Likewise OSX, the BSDs and whatever other OS you might point at at any time.
No more than there is, say, the best musician or athlete - everyone has strengths, weaknesses & what-not...
Say what you will, but Russinovich is is my ultimate nerd idol. Listening to that man talk about Windows, and go into such amazing detail about how it works, all the way down to the bare metal and then back up through the processor, into the kernel, back out into user mode... it's positively fascinating.
:P
Honest to goodness, the one thing that, not only career-wise but even down on a fundamental level of sheer personal enrichment for the thing I love most, would seemingly allow a quantum leap in what I want to learn would be an apprenticeship under him and the other technical fellows at Microsoft. Just as many here would probably say the same of themselves and Torvalds, I suspect!
Now I'm getting impatient, waiting for the next iteration of Windows Internals to show up at my door. Get moving, Microsoft!
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Virtual desktops are part of the core functionality of bblean. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions have for a long time worked tremendously well for me on Windows 7 OS. It is #1 on my list of must have software for Windows. My only gripe is that the program I use for updating my WoW addons (curse client) is a whimpy .NET application that won't execute at all under alternative shells (they say they don't support it), so I have to very simply work around their jankyness by switching back to explorer shell.
Back when I was still using XP (I've since switched to Linux and am getting by without multiple desktops on my home Windows 7 machine), VirtualDimension worked pretty well for me. You can give shortcut keys (I used Win+1-0) to switch between them, and it works by hiding all windows except those on the 'current desktop'. Some applications (most notably web browsers) would get sometimes get stuck on all the desktops if they were summoned to appear by another program while you were looking at a different desktop than the one you had put them on. Reason would seem to hang if I switched desktops while its file open dialog was open. But once I learned to avoid these situations it was perfectly useable.
I also used SlickRun and had each virtual desktop span 2 monitors and didn't run into any conflicts.
Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
Either way, it's fitting that you used a toy analogy. After all; Linux is, if anything, a tinker-toy desktop OS.
...which is presumably why over 90% of the top 500 supercomputers in the world run Linux, and all but one run something from the *NIX/BSD family.
But yeah, Windows is srs bzns.
Virtuawin works well for me on Windoze, but as other posters have said, it's a bolt on that is standard in Linux. W.
I personally use Actual Window Manager for my desktop management of windows systems. Lots of options for saving preferred locations for apps and changing behaviors like adding a second taskbar (with start button) to second monitors. Forcing apps to startup on same window as the mouse. Forcing apps to always be on top. Just a lot of little useful things that I occasionally really want.
It has a few flaws especially if the application its hooking is unresponsive and is more expensive than free but worth it in by my book. I don't use Virtual Desktops Switcher much as I don't personally need it but that is its multiple virtual desktop manager and is reasonably easy to use. The product has a 60 day trial so plenty of time to try to see if you like it.
Good thing you saved one letter with the "@" sign instead of writting "at", makes your post look that much more mature and readable.
"I see undead people" Warcraft III - Necromancer
I'm not sure if you understood or not, but I was referring to how some applications on WinNT3.51 could be exported and displayed on an X terminal without caring which OS was actually running on the terminal. That's what I was trying to describe, full native X windows so you could run anything from anywhere and put the GUI for it on whatever screen you are sitting in front of. The people involved with X on NT either worked for or became part of Citrix and developed a workaround after they were forbidden from using X.
Of course the applications would still need the right toolkit etc, but at least one company had some ports and working demos.