Microsoft Desktops Gives Windows Super-Simple Multiple Desktops

Windows only: Desktops, a new Vista-compatible 1.0 release from Microsoft’s Sysinternals team, is a multi-desktop tool for Windows users who don’t want, or can’t afford the system resources for, a complete virtual desktop solution, such as VirtuaWin or other tools we’ve covered. Desktops simply asks you to assign universal shortcut keys for desktop switching between a maximum of four (Shift+Ctrl+F1, for example), and then nests in your system tray to offer thumbnail views and switching by clicking. One plus is that Desktops doesn’t load new memory-hogging desktops until you create them. The big downsides are an inability to drag apps between desktops, along with incompatibility with some tools (Firefox, Launchy, and anything that doesn’t like multiple instances, for that matter). So it’s mostly a simple means of keeping full-screen email, browsers, office apps, and other programs separated, but it does that pretty well—with improvements, hopefully, to come. Desktops is a free download for Windows systems only.