Virtual desktops are one of your must-have multitasking software. When you have 25 tabs and 8 windows open like I do right now, virtual desktops help create some method out of the madness so you can separate your workspaces into manageable bites. I often divide mine into 2-4 desktops depending on how many projects I have open. Once you get used to it, they can really help to keep your sanity when doing multitasking.

And then came Windows 7. It’s supposed to be the operating system that fixed everything. It is, in a way. If you’ve ever used it, you’ll find a LOT of significant enhancements, fixes and features that we needed. But not virtual desktops – which have been coming with most Linus distros practically forever. The good thing about Windows is that if something doesn’t exist built-in, there’s always an add-on that will do what you need to do.

Herein we shall review and test some virtual desktop software for Windows 7. All tests were performed on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager

This software had most of the features of the other programs, plus two neat preview features, which puts this at the top our list.

Pros

• A quick little desktop switcher at the bottom right hand corner of your screen

• Ability to preview your desktops as thumbnails when you roll over the taskbar icon

• A quick display message (which disappears in a second) tells which desktop you switched to as soon as switch

Cons

• I didn’t see any window management features built into the shell. Meaning that you couldn’t simply right-click on a window and send the window to next desktop like with other software. However it does have some awesome hotkey functionality built in so you could send a window or move desktops pressing arrow keys or the number pad.

VirtuaWin 4.1

VirtuaWin 4.1 “just works” with Windows 7.

Pros

• Simple window management (middle-click on window to use)

• Works with multiple screens

Cons

• Somewhat confusing interface (can you make sense of this? I couldn’t)

• Does not support window previews. I like the ability of having desktops viewable as thumbnails when you click on the icon.

Virtual Dimension 0.94

This is, by far, in my opinion, the best virtual desktop software we have reviewed for Windows 7.

Pros

• Extremely simple and easy to use interface
• Set rules for the desktops if you want some window always to be on some desktop.
• Allows you to see some windows on all desktops(e.g. IM Client).