Virtual Desktops for Windows

Wednesday, July 13th, 2005

GNU/Linux window managers almost always have a feature built in called virtual desktops. The first time I installed GNU/Linux, I was immediatelly in love with this feature. It increases the ease of use of your desktop by such a large factor that I absolutely cannot work without this feature.

Unfortunatelly, such a feature is not built into Windows. Odd, since it’s really quite easy to use, unobtrusive and not hard to implement. I even remember it being included in some power tools package on old windows versions, but I couldn’t find it anywhere on the CD when I last installed Windows 2000.

Luckily, there are third-party applications that provide the same functionality on Windows. So far, I ‘ve always used MultiDesk. Unfortunatelly, maintenance on MultiDesk seemed almost non-existent and there where still some much needed features, such as fully configurable keybindings, unimplemented.

Recently, I discovered Dexpot though. Dexpot has all the features you’ll ever need, is highly configurable, is free, is still being maintained and, as far as I’ve been able to tell, has no strange quirks or bugs. If you’ve never experienced virtual desktops before, go ahead and try Dexpot. You’ll never turn back.