Virtual Desktops: Divide and Conquer with “Desktops 1.0″ from Sysinternals
Even with a decent-size screen, if you’re running many applications at the same time, it can be time-consuming toggling through all those windows using Alt-F4 or the taskbar. Wouldn’t things be easier if you have one screen just for email, another for word processing, another for editing graphics, etc.?
Enter Desktops 1.0
Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell recently released Sysinternals’ Desktop 1.0, which allows you to create up to 4 “virtual desktops.” A tiny (62 KB) download, you simply install it and run it. You can choose which key combinations you’ll use to switch between the virtual desktops.
Desktops Options
Now you can switch between your desktops using those key combinations, or by right-clicking on the Desktops icon in the system tray, where you’ll see a screen like the one below:
Choose a Desktop
Takeaway: Desktops 1.0 is a free and simple way to segregate whichever applications you’re currently running into their own virtual desktops.
It’s just one of many free utilities that Sysinternals offers. Many of these will give you insight into what’s happening “behind the scenes” of your Windows operating system. You might just find a utility here that you’ll use every day.
