Use virtual desktops to help you organise the windows on screen

To start, launch a web browser and go to Virtuawin's download page. When the page appears, click the Virtuawin download link at the top of the page to get the latest version of the program – 4.3 when we visited. If the File Download Security Warning dialogue box appears, click Save and then choose a location for the downloaded file. Firefox users should select Save File to save the download to Firefox’s default download folder. Now locate and double-click the downloaded file and follow the installation instructions. Once the installation process has completed, launch the Virtuawin application.

A new icon (a green ‘1’ in a black square) will appear in the Notification Area, at the bottom right of the Taskbar. To configure Virtuawin, either double-click this icon or right-click it and choose Setup from the pop-up menu.

The Virtuawin setup window will now appear, with six tabs running along the top of it. The General tab will be selected by default, and it’s here that the main settings are configured. The first section of the General tab is labelled Desktop Configuration. Virtuawin lays out virtual desktops in a notional grid, allowing the user to quickly move between them using shortcut keys. By default, Virtuawin has six virtual desktops in a grid layout of two wide by three deep. To change this, simply click on the relevant up and down arrows; a maximum of 20 virtual windows can be created.

Each virtual desktop can be named. Having named desktops helps when using some of Virtuawin’s more advanced features, which we’ll explore later. To name the first virtual desktop, click the box beneath the ‘Name of desktop 1’ label and enter an appropriate name (‘Documents’, for example). Click the Next button and repeat the process to name the rest of the desktops. Click OK when finished.

To switch between the virtual desktops, right-click the Virtuawin icon in the Notification Area, point to Move to Desktop and choose the appropriate one. When a new virtual desktop is chosen, all the usual icons will be present but there will be no open windows. The number displayed in Virtuawin’s Notification Area icon will also change to indicate the desktop being used. Open a window within a virtual desktop and it will be visible only on that specific desktop, meaning it won’t clutter up the other desktops.

To make switching even easier, Virtuawin can be controlled with keyboard shortcuts. To do this hold down Ctrl (Control) and Alt keys and use the cursor (arrow) keys to move around the grid of desktops defined in Step 3. To move from Desktop 1 to Desktop 6 within a two-wide-by-three-deep grid, for example, hold down Ctrl and Alt, then press the right arrow key once followed by two presses of the down arrow key. To view all the available shortcuts (or create new ones of your own), click the Hotkeys tab within Virtuawin’s setup window.

Another way to move around the virtual desktop grid is to use the mouse. To enable this, return to the Virtuawin setup window and click the Mouse tab. Next, click to place a tick in the ‘Enable mouse desktop changing’ box and click OK. Now, to move from Desktop 1 to Desktop 2, for instance, move the mouse pointer to the right-hand edge of the Windows Desktop and hold it there. After a short pause, Desktop 2 will appear on screen.

However, accidentally switching between desktops as a result of accidental mouse movements can be annoying, so it pays to use some of the advanced settings to tailor exactly how it operates. Return to the Mouse tab within the setup window and click to tick the ‘Enable modifier key control’ box. Next, place a tick in one or more of the four available Modifier boxes – the available Modifier keys are Shift, Ctrl, Alt and Windows (Win). Now, the mouse pointer’s position will only switch desktops if the specified Modifier key is held down.

To move an open window from one virtual desktop to another, first left-click the Virtuawin icon in the Notification Area. A box showing all open windows will appear, along with the number of the desktop on which they reside. To move a window to the current desktop, click on the appropriate entry within the Move Here column. Alternatively, clicking the same entry within the Switch To column will switch to that window on that virtual desktop. Clicking an entry in the Always Show column, meanwhile, will force the chosen window to be visible on all desktops – handy for an instant-messaging chat window.

If you want all windows to be visible on one desktop, there are a couple of ways to do this. One way is to simply close the Virtuawin application. However, another method – useful for temporary requirements – is the Gather All feature. To use this, right-click the Virtuawin icon in the Notification Area and choose Gather All. All application windows will now be moved to the currently active virtual desktop (leaving all other virtual desktops empty).