Low Display Real Estate?

Do you run out of open display space on your desktop?

Have a task bar that is two or three rows deep?

That is a lot of open windows to sort through to find the application you need to use.

There is a better way to organize your desktop and have fewer applications in view at one time.

One way to do it is with a view that rotates 360*, that is the desktop is a loop of all open applications in their own space such as a tablet. I used Desktop 360 for a little while but it gave me vertigo and had to quit using it.

Then I found a program that creates four individual desktop displays.

Now this one doesn't spin left and right, it just opens the display to another desktop. Cool, no more going past the application I need or vertigo!

Now I am a little embarrassed about this article because I just found this neat tool about two years ago and it has been around since early 2008! Sysinternals Desktops is a Microsoft program so running it doesn't cause any problems, where as Desktop 360 did lock up once in a while. I tested the program in Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit) with out any issues at all.

Virtual Desktop only uses 2.9 meg of memory but the four explores will range from around 9 meg to over a gig (depending on what applications you have open on the particular desktop.

The application can be started at start up or you can start it once your desktop display is loaded. It minimizes to the tray and to switch from one desktop to another you click the icon and small window opens with the four desktops, just click on the desktop you want to go to.

One of the nice features of the application is it takes a screen shot of the each desktop so you can see what application is open in which desktop until you get used to using it.

The four desktops are numbered from top left to bottom right, top left is number 1, top right is number 2, bottom left is number 3, bottom right is number 4.

I have my desktops setup this way:

1. Is my communications desktop, that is my email, twitter, and sometimes Face Book or My Space if I am working on my pages.
2. Is my edit desktop, that is my HTML editor, graphics program, word, and any other program or web site I use to manage and work on my web sites.
3. Is usually my file and domain management desktop, sometimes I have explorer open or File Manager (old NT 4 program for managing files) and the domain management applet Users and Computers.
4. Is usually has VM Ware for Virtual Machines, the web cam and other miscellaneous programs.

So on a normal day I have at least ten and up to twenty programs open at one time. (I have a Core 2 Quad with 8 gig - 3.25 useable memory). And have no discernable performance problems.

When I look at the task bar I know exactly what is open on the desktop, no looking under different programs for the one I need.

Troubleshoot, repair, maintain, upgrade & secure...     With this!

However if you close the folder in desktop # 2 then want to open it again it will open, the problem is only if you try to open the folder in a different desktop. (Does this make sense?).

05-17-21 - This program will run on Windows 10, there is a catch: It only runs on the 32bit version, if you install it on a 64bit installation when you go to a different desktop (say from 1 to 4) then return to the first desktop ir will be black, the program doesn't save the first desktop data so when you go to the first desktop it is blank, and when you return to the other desktop it is also blank... I haven't decided if I want to check Microsoft to see if they have fixed that problem for the 64bit version.