In Windows 11 there’s a button on the taskbar next to the start button that lets you switch between multiple desktop environments. It seems like something that would probably be useful in theory, but I can’t think of any reason why I would want to use it. Is it actually useful? What do people use it for?
Desktop 1: WFH environment - mail, terminal, ticket queue etc.
Desktop 2: Me-stuff - lemmy, gmail, youtube, netflix, steam.
Why not just have all of that open on one desktop? Is it because you want your personal stuff to be hidden in case you need to share your screen?
It’s a feature that Microsoft was very late to rip off from other platforms. I’ve been using it in different Linux/UNIX graphical environments for ages.
You can think about it as a way to organize your windows by splitting them into groups. If you work on multiple things and require to have many windows opened simultaneously, you can make your desktop less cluttered. You can then switch between the desktop by swiping laptop touchpad (with 3 or 4 fingers), or hitting some keyboard combo.
I also use them kind of instead traditional task switcher. I’ve got one browser window maximized on workspace 1, fullscreen terminal on 2, mail and messengers on 3, even more apps on 4. It’s like multi monitor functionality with just one screen.
I’ve had cases where a game crashed and I couldn’t open any other window including the task manager. I could alt tab to it, but when I try opening it it would instantly revert back to the crashed game. But if you move task manager to another desktop and switch to that desktop, you can force close the crashed game. Pretty much a fringe case and I’ve never found another reason to use this feature personally.
I have task manager forced front, so even if my game shits the bed the task manager will always appear in front of it.
Oh my God please tell me how to do this
Modded Minecraft frequently shits bricks.
Did you use Ctrl + Shift + Esc to directly open Task Manager? If so, you may get different results with Ctrl + Alt + Del and choosing it from the manager. C/S/E asks for the manager, C/A/D demands it. I can’t promise the game won’t still override it but a fun fact either way
This is something I actually use all the time. It helps to mentally separate the tasks I’m working on and keep things from getting cluttered. For example, if I’m editing audio on one desktop and preparing a 3D print on another, I can keep all those programs and files siloed into their own little workspace. I can also just stop working on either task at any point and just switch to a new clean desktop without losing my open programs and windows so I can just pop back into them later.
I work as an engineer and I use it like a desktop for each project. Works very well when you need to work on more than one project at a time - all the programs, files, folders, browser tabs for one project are on one screen exactly where I left them, and exactly in the layout where I left off.
I also keep the first desktop as a HOME screen, where I have email, Teams, Zoom, and my timesheet program. If I need to talk to someone about a project while I work on it, I just pop that chat out into a new window and move it to the respective desktop.
The only limitation is that if you open something (like an Excel file) through Windows Explorer on desktop 1, but you have an instance of the program already running on desktop 3, it will jump around the desktops and open on the one where it’s already open. I have no idea why, not all programs do that, but it’s easy to move it to the correct place.
Also it’s even more hand if you learn the keyboard shortcuts.
I did something similar, but was annoyed by all the jumping around when opening excel or word or PDFs… Plus even just having a group of emails and an explorer window open on a couple desktops really starts to eat ram it seems. Forget about solid works in that situation.
If they allowed you to save desktops and fixed the jumping issues it might be useful.
Depot was so much better.
So, if I used SolidWorks or AutoCAD more, it would be a different story. I do most of my work in Revit which is OK on using RAM. And I wish I could save desktops, that’d be cool.
What’s Depot?
Dexpot was a virtual desktop fir Windows that appears to be abandoned
Sounds like excel is still doing what it has done for a while. Even though windows can finally (again) treat excel instances separately in the task bar, clicking one brings up the single excel window containing all excel files open. So if I open a 2nd excel file, then x it out, the 1st file is on top now. This doesn’t bug me when it’s the browser or Adobe because those at least clearly present as tabbed items and, more importantly, can be broken out to different windows
