Getting around Multiple Desktops | Windows 10

Getting around Multiple Desktops

To see what’s going on, try building a few desktops. Here’s one way:

1. Start Windows.

2. Crank up a few programs.
Doesn’t matter which ones. Get three or four going.

3. Tap or click the Task View icon — the one that looks like two chairs at a table,
just to the right of Cortana.
Windows lines up your running programs, darkens the main desktop, and puts a +
New Desktop icon in the lower-right corner, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Task View lines up the currently running programs and adds a + icon for creating new desktops.

4. Click or tap the + icon to add a new desktop.
Windows creates a thumbnail for a second desktop and moves all the running
programs to Desktop 1, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The first desktop gets all the running programs when a second desktop is added.

5. Click the thumbnail marked Desktop 2.
Windows shows you a clean, new desktop.

6. Crank up a few more programs.
They can be the same programs as the ones on Desktop 1 or new ones. Each
desktop works independently.

7. Click the Task View icon again.
Windows shows you the contents of Desktop 2, with a grayed background, but also
shows you thumbnails for Desktops 1 and 2, as shown in Figure 3.
Note that the items shown in Task View may vary depending on whether you’re in
Tablet Mode, or if you have the screen switched around into portrait.

Figure 3: Now showing Desktop 2.

8. Tap or click the Desktop 1 thumbnail.
Desktop 1 reappears, with all its programs working.
At the same time, all the programs on Desktop 2 stop. If you were playing music,
the music stops. Watching a video? It freezes. Desktop 2 goes into suspended
animation.

9. Click the + icon again to add another desktop. And another.
You can also type Win+Ctrl+D to create a new desktop.
In theory, there’s no limit to the number of desktops you can run.

10. To remove a desktop, hover your mouse or tap and hold the thumbnail, and
choose the X icon at the top.
When you shut down a desktop, all its running apps get transferred to the next
lower-numbered desktop.