One of Windows 10’s nicest features, particularly if you’re a power user, is the ability to launch separate virtual desktops. Mac and Linux users have had this capability for years, but Microsoft never added it as a core functionality to any OS before Windows 10. That doesn’t mean Microsoft never supported it — it just never shipped standard in a base OS install. If you have Windows 7 or 8 and want to experiment with a Microsoft solution, Desktops 2.0 is available from Sysinternals.

Before we tackle what Microsoft has done on this front, we need to define the term Virtual Desktop, since it can be used in different contexts to refer to different kinds of products. A virtual desktop is not the same thing as desktop virtualization, which refers to a method of running a separate operating system instance on top of an already-existing OS (here’s how to install Windows 10 in a virtual machine). VMware and Oracle both produce VM software designed to run either locally or remotely. Requests by the virtualized OS are intercepted by an application software layer called a hypervisor, which relays the request to the host operating system, which then interfaces with the hardware platform.

A virtual desktop is a method of extending a computer users’ workspace beyond what’s typically shown on the screen at any given time. Instead of having one workspace with a taskbar and icons of operating programs, you can have multiple desktop windows, each with its own open software. This can help sandbox user content and keep things organized — you could theoretically have one desktop open and showing a 3D render in progress, while a second desktop is dedicated to tutorials and research on 3D rendering and a third desktop has your IM windows and email tucked away.

The Task View button

There are two ways to use this mode in Windows 10. Either click on the Task View icon on the task bar (shown below and highlighted in red), or press the Win-Tab keys simultaneously. Either option will open the Task Viewer.

The Task View view.

Once the Task Viewer is open, you have several options available. In the image above, I have only one desktop open and all of the applications currently running on that desktop are displayed in a grid in the middle of the screen. Each window is labeled at the top and can be clicked on to switch to that specific application. You can use the Task Viewer to duplicate the function of Alt-Tab if you’re so inclined, though Alt-Tab will be slightly faster if you only have a few windows open and know exactly which application you need, or if you’re switching between two applications. The New Desktop button at the bottom right creates a new desktop without any applications open.

Moving desktop windows from #1 to #2.

It’s also possible to move a window open on one desktop to a different desktop. The act of moving a window can also be used to create another desktop, meaning I don’t need to create a new instance before shifting the window. Applications that are open in multiple desktops (say, browser windows) have a blue line underneath them in all other desktops, so you can see at a glance if you have duplicate instances of a program running somewhere else on a system. Choosing to close all instances of an application only affects the desktop that you’re currently using.

One thing to understand about virtual desktops, however, is that they aren’t completely independent instances of the Windows desktop. You can’t customize icon layouts or have different applications pinned to the taskbar. If you want to fast-switch between different desktops, you can press Ctrl+Win+L/R arrow to move between the desktops you’ve configured. If you have more than three, it’ll probably be faster to use Task View.

Virtual desktop fixes one of Windows 8’s most annoying problems

Windows 10’s virtual desktop is a much better solution than what the company offered in Windows 8. In theory, the ability to pin Metro applications and the Desktop app side-by-side was a great way to introduce people to the new UI. This concept was undermined when it became clear that using Alt-Tab to switch window focus would break your carefully constructed Metro / Desktop layout. There were alternative key commands to use, but as someone who’s been using Alt-Tab for over twenty years, it was maddening to instinctively take an action, break a layout, and then Alt-Tab again in a vain attempt to fix the problem that only ended up making it worse.

Virtual desktop fixes this by keeping Alt-Tab sandboxed within each desktop window, but giving users a similar and easy-to-use command to open up entirely new sessions dedicated to different sets of application. The critical difference between Windows 8 and Windows 10 in this regard is that hitting Alt-Tab by mistake when you meant to hit Win-Tab doesn’t harm anything.

This is one of the better features of Windows 10, particularly if you like the idea of having workspaces dedicated to specific programs. It may have been playing catch-up with Linux and OS X, but we’re glad to see it here.