Virtuoz virtual desktop utility
I’m happy to present Virtuoz, the virtual desktop utility.
Virtuoz was designed to be a minimal and robust program that allows to have more than one desktop on Windows. It was inspired by Sysinternals Desktops, but uses a different approach, which doesn’t impose the limitations which Desktops is bound to.
Virtuoz is designed for Windows 7 and Windows 8. Note that Windows 10 is not supported (Windows 10 supports virtual desktops without extra software).
Download
Virtuoz.zip (349.31 kB)
please explain:
How do I “Move to desktop 2” one particular Window?
Alt+`. The hotkey can be changed by modifying the .ini file.Thank you for this very quick reply.
Now it works – that’s great!
Another question:
Would it also pe possible to move in a similar (easy) way
a window from Monitor1 to Display2 (and switch back)?
If you have any suggestions, please let me know!
Thank you !
I have a single display, but as far as I remember, clicking Win+Right/Left a couple of times moves the window to the next display.
win + shift + arrow
Como puedo hacer para que una aplicación ya no salga en los demás escritorios, por ejemplo smartgaga sale en todos los escritorios, como puedo hacer para que aparezca solo en un escritorio.
Sorry, I don’t speak Spanish. In general, Virtuoz doesn’t have an option to show a window on all virtual desktops. Perhaps you have a program which is running as administrator, and so Virtuoz has no control over it (unless it is, too, running as administrator), and so it’s displayed on all virtual desktops.
While dragging the windows, press Alt + 2 (or whatever desktop number) and drop there
I tried already all the suggested shortcuts
– but nothing worked (win7/64)
All the tools I found till now are too complicated
and/or do have too many functions.
I would be glad to have a simple tool only
to toggle the active window between two displays.
Hence, the search goes on!
Anyway – thank you again for paying attention to my query!
This looks great! Only thing missing is the “Desktops Preview” ala the sysinternals one. Any chance of adding that ?
Probably not. See my reply here.
What problems are you going to solve?
http://dexpot.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5894
What special features are missing in other Virtual Desktops?
Anyway, I wish you great success.
Stamimail
I’m not sure that I’m going to invest much more time in the project, considering the fact that Windows 10 is going to be released soon with a similar functionality.
It’s just that I started developing it a long time ago, and just recently found the time to finish the missing bits to make it functional.
For your #1 problem, there’s Fences. I haven’t tried it myself, but it looks like it does exactly what you need.
Good question. One thing that I didn’t find any other virtual desktop utility to manage correctly is the taskbar order. Out of the 3-4 most popular utilities that I tried, switching between desktops would mess up the taskbar order.
If I’d found an utility which doesn’t have this limitation, perhaps I’d never come up with Virtuoz in the first place.
For my #1 problem, I tried Fences and I didn’t like. But Dexpot offers a real solution for me: Multiple Desktops in User (It creates Desktop2, Desktop3… folders in User). But, currently I don’t use Dexpot due to other problems, hoping they will be fixed in next version…
I’m not being smart, but why would someone neeed multiple desktops?
It can help you arrange your workspace.
You can read about virtual desktops here.
Hi.
Such a lifesaver software.
Please dont discontinue it 🙂
My productivity is exploding due to this 🙂
Thanks.
Sometimes the pinned program icons move all the way to the right in one of the virtual desktops, but I haven’t been able to find out exactly why.
Any way to figure out why / fix this?
Before I start looking at the code, please tell me: which version of Virtuoz are you using, and which OS?
Windows 8.1 x64, version 1.0.4
Sorry, I only realized I forgot to put more details after I submitted the comment.
It seems to happen the most when I open an app from a pinned icon in the taskbar and switch to another desktop while/before it finishes opening, but I don’t think that’s always the case.
I went over the code, but I can’t think of a reason for the pinned items to appear all on the right. It could make sense if they were on the left, e.g. if some windows are hung, they can appear with a delay on the new virtual desktop, and therefore end up on the right.
Do you have any reproduction case? If not, probably the best I can provide you with is a debug build with some extra logging output, which might shed some light about the issue.
I can reproduce this somewhat reliably with Sublime Text, for example. I have it pinned to the taskbar between other programs, and If i click it on a desktop and quickly switch to another, there’s about a 30% chance the pinned icon will be moved to the right in one or both the virtual desktops.
This also happens with firefox and the windows console, probably with more as well.
I can try that debug build, just tell me what needs to be done.
OK, so as far as I understand:
Did I get it right? Please confirm, and I’ll try to reproduce it.
If you can, it will help if you’ll upload a video which demonstrates the issue.
Yes, that is correct. The pinned icon to the right is not always in the desktop which has the open window though.
Right now I can’t, but I will upload a video later (about 10 hours from now) or tomorrow.
Here are a few examples: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9rtv429nlffa5rw/virtuoz_demo.7z
It also seems to happen when closing an open window, apparently (test_1 and test_2).
Thank you for the detailed videos. Try v1.0.5. If you find more problematic cases, please let me know.
Can’t break it anymore, so I’m assuming it’s fixed.
Thanks for this great app, it’s a must have.
(sorry for the triple post, wish I could edit last one)
100% of the times, sending a window to another virtual desktop will also move the window’s pinned icon to the right in the destination desktop. Tested this on my other computers and found the same results.
RaMMicHaeL, thank you!!!
The Virtuoz is much better than the Sysinternals Desktops. I LOVED! Simple, small, useful and compiled in VC++, this is fantastic!!
Thank you for offering it for free! 😉
Hello and thank you for the elegant solution.
Do you plan to add the “Show the window on all desktops” functionality? You could technically move such windows from one desktop to another automatically while switching desktops if it is not feasible otherwise.
Hi,
Sorry, but I don’t plan to add new features to Virtuoz. See my reply here.
I might consider releasing the source code, if that will help. It’s written in C++ with the WTL library.
Hi RaMMicHaeL,
Do you still plan to release the source code or can I get access to the source code of Virtuoz?
I personally think this is the best virtual desktop manager in terms of speed when switching desktop and it correctly preserves the taskbar order. The only missing feature is to show specific windows on all desktops, so I am thinking about implementing it myself.
Hi Charles,
Here you go:
https://github.com/RaMMicHaeL/Virtuoz
For anyone looking for the feature of showing specific windows on all desktops, I have uploaded a test release here (haven’t test it much so there could be bugs but it works):
https://github.com/char101/Virtuoz/releases/tag/0.1.1
My modification
https://github.com/char101/Virtuoz
Thanks to RaMMicHaeL who has open sourced virtuoz.
sounds great! but can you also provide 32-bit binaries?
Added 32bit build here (untested)
https://github.com/char101/Virtuoz/releases/tag/0.1.2
thanks a lot! works like a charm!
@Charles
You may want to take a look at the issue “I Love RaMMicHaeL” and myself had with this regarding having it abandon us on the new desktop with no way back to the original one. Every time I run it (and yours is the same), I can switch one time and then it stops working, so whatever desktop I was on is now gone.
Awesome. Thanks a lot 🙂
oh my god , amazing , like like like like …. !
Virtuoz.exe – Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point SHGetPropertyStoreForWindow could not be located in the dynamic link library SHELL32.dll.
OK
(on Windows Vista 32-bit)
Windows Vista in not supported. Virtuoz is only compatible with Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Thank you so much, this is really useful !!!
And thanks again for sharing the source code !
I use the fork made by Charles, with Windows 7. Virtuoz is great: lightweight, I can edit the hotkeys, I can move windows, and – the biggest advantage – it will not mess up the taskbar order!
Tomorrow I will test it with Windows 10.
Windows 10 isn’t supported, and the last time I tried, it didn’t work properly. Note that Windows 10 has built in virtual desktops.
Hi Michael,
Can Virtuoz create desktops for gaming too?
Like playing with multiple instances of a game.
Some games allows people to use multiple characters at the same time.
Thanks in advance
Hi Irwan,
Depends on the game. Try it 🙂
It’s a great simple solution for multi desktops in windows 7 that I’ve found.
Thanks RaMMicHaeL!!
Hi RaMMicHaeL, thank you so very much for all your applications, especially 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, 7+ Taskbar Numberer, Textify and most recently Virtuoz, I wouldn’t want to use Windows 7 without them!
Sadly I have encountered a problem, Virtuoz has crashed a couple of times and even after starting it again I have been unable to recover the windows that were on any of the other 3 desktops, absolutely devastating when they contain unsaved work. Is there a way I can manually get the windows to appear again? (on any desktop)
Are you simply setting the windows to be visable when the corresponding desktop number is set in Vituoz and invisible otherwise?
And so when Virtuoz crashes or its process ended the other windows remain hidden?
If so, how can I set them to be visable again please? (Ideally with an existing program or better yet from within windows, as I am not as good a programmer as you!)
(Also, how do I donate via paypal? As I don’t have BitCoin)
Microsoft should hire you and pay you well, you have absolutely transformed Windows 7 from the worst user experience of any OS to by far the best!
Many many many thanks 🙂
Hi,
Thank you for your feedback, I’m glad that you like my programs 🙂
Can you paste the crash report? See the following tutorial: How do I find event logs when a program crashes?
Yes.
There are many hidden windows on the system, but you can use WinSpy++ to show hidden windows, if you remember which windows were shown.
Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/i1VQWGl.png
You can download WinSpy++ here: https://github.com/RaMMicHaeL/winspy/releases
You can donate here:
http://rammichael.com/donate
If that doesn’t work, my PayPal address is the same as my contact email here:
http://rammichael.com/about
Thanks 🙂
I just had this same exact thing happen to me. Was about to reboot and lose what I had going on in my browser when I found this. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to use winspy (thought I had to make changes via the main entry for the app but then figured out I had to do it with the sub-entries.
I don’t know if it’s a W10 issue or what, but for an issue this serious I think a hard to miss warning is warranted.
Windows 10 is not supported. See also this comment.
I don’t know whether your issue is related to Windows 10, but if you can attach the crash report it might help me understand what went wrong.
I figured as much, but wasn’t sure. My point was that the fact W10 isn’t supported isn’t made clear, and 99%+ of people aren’t going to see that in the comments before trying it. To save people from a lot of frustration and the possibility of losing work, there should be a very prominent warning next to the download link or something.
As for a crash report, I’ve uninstalled it, so not sure if it’s still there, but I found a Report.wer file under the following two directories:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppHang_Virtuoz.exe_aef2cbafcfd5e8dcb8b3492fb58ecde487abd8_79fe41f2_29bf815a
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\Critical_Virtuoz.exe_2cb9736dfdeb6f96c793e72b4f894d54ba2dea8_79fe41f2_cab_08e3cef9
If these are what you need, I can email them to you, otherwise, I could install and run it again to generate a new one, preferably in a VM unless you think that wouldn’t provide the right info. I’d have to email it to you, though, since files can’t be attached here.
Yes, you can send these files. My email can be found here. The “AppHang” folder hints that there’s a deadlock, so probably the first report won’t really help (there’s no location of a crash, since there was no crash).
I’ll add a notice. Windows 10 supports virtual desktops out of the box, so I assumed that user’s won’t try it in the first place.
Email sent. The W10 virtual desktops suck (for many reasons), which is why I thought maybe this would be a good alternative. I’m sure others feel the same.
It has limitations, that’s true. On the other hand, it’s more stable since it’s built into the OS, and uses a window hiding technique that is not available for third party software.
Some of the Windows 10 virtual desktop API is available for programs to use, so there are several enhancing software. For example, here are some.
Also, one of the limitations – taskbar order preservation – is fixed by 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. See here.
How do I set default hotkey to “goto next” or “goto previous” desktop… maybe I can just slide from one to another… left to right, rather than specifying a specific desktop.
Is that possible?
“goto left” or “goto right” desktop.
great work, clean code. awesome job.
It’s not possible with the current version, and I don’t plan to add new features to Virtuoz. See my reply here.
Virtuoz is open source, so you can implement the feature yourself if you’d like.
Please add support for windows 10. It’s native multi-desktop support sucks. You can’t quickly switch to specific desktop without cycling through all desktops and you can’t easily send a window to another desktop with just two buttons. And you can’t change hotkeys. Microsoft are terrible at UI
Unlikely. Virtuoz is no longer supported, see my reply here. You can try to do it yourself, though, the source code is published on GitHub. It should mostly work, mainly requiring some adjustment to the taskbar reordering synchronization, since Windows 10 made some operations asynchronous.
Also there are tools that enhance the native Windows 10 virtual desktop feature by providing configurable hotkeys and similar. Here are two that I quickly found on Google, haven’t tried them: windows-desktop-switcher, zVirtualDesktop.
Thank you very much, it’s great, small and fast software and instead of Sysinternal’s Desktpos it works fine with taskbars. Win8.1 x64.
Michael I congratulate you on a great job, really thank you very much! I give you a suggestion, it would be very useful if you could name each of the 4 desks, something that is easier to recognize according to the task that is being done with them. Thank you very much!
Thank you for the feedback. Sorry, but it’s probably not going to happen as Virtuoz is no longer maintained. Please see some of my replies above.