Individual Windows Desktops to suit all your needs

Launch a web browser and then visit the website for nSpaces. Scroll down the page and click the More Info button in the nSpaces section and then click the Download button to the upper right of the page. 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 to begin installation.

Click Install when prompted. There will be a slight delay while the latest setup files are downloaded for you and then installation will continue automatically. When the installation is complete, a new icon will appear in the Notification Area (at the bottom right of the Taskbar). To start configuring Nspace, right-click this icon and choose Settings from the pop-up menu.

In the Settings dialogue box, ensure the box labelled ‘Launch nSpaces on login’ is ticked. To password-protect the virtual Desktops, tick the box labelled ‘Must enter password to use nSpaces’. You will then need to type in and confirm the password that you would like to use. Click the HotKey box and press the keyboard shortcut you would like to use to switch between Desktops (we’ve chosen the Windows key and S). Be sure to tick the final box (‘Show background image on each thumbnail’) and click the Save button.

By default, Nspace is made up of four virtual Desktops, arranged in a notional 2x2 grid – though more can be easily added. Right-click the Nspaces icon in the Notification Area and choose nSpaces from the pop-up menu. In the Your Spaces dialogue box that is displayed, the upper portion shows a representation of the virtual Desktops that already exist. This number can be adjusted by clicking the plus (+) and minus (-) buttons alongside the Rows and Columns labels.

Each Desktop is numbered and has a name. To help make individual Desktops easier to identify when switching, it can be helpful to assign more meaningful names – such as ‘Images’ for the Desktop that you intend to use for image editing. Click each of the Desktops in turn and click the Label tab in the lower portion of the dialogue. Type in a suitable label and click the Save button. (To bring the dialogue back into view, click the Notification Area icon once again.).

In addition to changing the various Desktop labels, it is also possible to assign each a different background (wallpaper) image: this makes it easier to identify in the Desktop-switcher window. Select a Desktop and then click the Wallpaper tab before clicking the Browser button and selecting the image that you would like to use. Now use the dropdown menu to choose whether the image should be centred, tiled or stretched. Alternatively, use the Color tab to choose a unique background colour for each Desktop.

One particularly handy feature of nSpaces, and one that can be a real boost to productivity, is its ability to automatically open a particular application on a specific virtual Desktop. In the Your Spaces dialogue, click to select the relevant Desktop and click the Apps tab in the bottom half of the dialogue. Click the Browser button and then navigate to the executable file that relates to the application that should launch on the selected Desktop. Repeat as many times as necessary and then click Save.

It is possible to configure ‘hot keys’ to switch to specific Desktops. This can be useful when working on several tasks at the same time, flitting between them. In the Your Space window, select a Desktop at the top of the dialogue and click the HotKey tab below. Click in the text box and press the keyboard shortcut you would like to use for easy switching before clicking OK.

There are a few ways to switch between Desktops. The first is to right-click the Notification Area icon and select the Switcher option from the pop-up menu. Just click the preview of a Desktop to switch to it. The same Switcher window can be accessed by pressing the keyboard shortcut you configured back in Step 3 (Windows key + S, in our case). The last option is to use one of the keyboard shortcuts you configured in the previous step to switch directly to a specific Desktop.

We mentioned in Step 3 that the virtual Desktops can be password protected and showed how to enable this. To protect the Desktops with this password, right-click the Nspaces icon in the Notification Area and choose Lock. When the icon is next right-clicked – or an attempt is make to switch Desktops – Nspaces will prompt for the password.