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?

  • @slowwooderrunsdeep
    15•1 year ago

    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.

    • @HessiaNerd
      6•1 year ago

      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.

      • @slowwooderrunsdeep
        1•1 year ago

        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?

    • @XeroxCool
      2•1 year ago

      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