Why The Built-In Virtual Desktops Aren't Enough
Windows 11 ships with virtual desktops. You can add them, switch between them, move windows across them, and even pin specific apps to a desktop. It works fine for basic organization, but if you actually live inside multiple desktops all day, you will hit frustration within a week. The taskbar stays on every desktop. You cannot hide it per-desktop. Window placement is unreliable when moving between desktops. And there is no way to group shortcuts or assign custom names that stick reliably. Sysinternals Desktops is a small free utility from Microsoft's own sysinternals suite that adds a heavier, more controllable layer of virtual desktop management on top of whatever Windows already gives you. It gives you per-desktop taskbars, application assignment rules, workspace grouping, and cleaner keyboard-driven navigation. It is not a replacement for the OS-level virtual desktop system, but it is a force multiplier for anyone who runs more than three desktops regularly.
Unlock The Power Of Windows 11 With Sysinternals Desktops
Download comes from the official Sysinternals site. The download page is at learn.microsoft.com/sysinternals/downloads/desktops. Grab the zip, extract it somewhere permanent like C:\Tools\Sysinternals, and run Desktops.exe as your normal user. It does not install itself into the Start menu or Services. It is a standalone portable executable, which means you can put it on a USB drive and carry your desktop configuration with you. The first thing I do after installing it is set up the keyboard shortcuts through the Settings dialog, accessible from the tray icon. Default shortcuts are Alt+Shift+1 through Alt+Shift+8 to switch desktops, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+1 through 8 to move the active window to a specific desktop, and Ctrl+Alt+F to open the desktop management window. I change the switch shortcuts to Ctrl+Win+Left/Right because they feel more natural after years of using them on Linux. The utility remembers these changes in a JSON config file stored in your user profile, so migrating to a new machine means copying that one file. One feature that makes the tool genuinely useful is per-desktop application assignment. You can tell Desktops to launch specific programs automatically whenever you switch to desktop 3. I keep my dev environment—VS Code, terminal, Docker Desktop, a browser with twelve tabs—locked to desktop 4, and my communication apps—Slack, Outlook, Teams—on desktop 2. When I switch, the relevant apps are already there. It saves about two minutes of window-shuffling every time I context-switch, which adds up to something like fifteen minutes over a eight-hour day.
The per-desktop taskbar hiding is the other killer feature. By default, the Windows taskbar shows on every desktop. In Desktops you can set it to only show on the currently active desktop, or hide it entirely on secondary desktops. This reduces visual clutter significantly when you are juggling four or five workspaces. I disable the taskbar on desktops 3 through 6 and leave it only on desktop 1, which I reserve for general browsing and email. Everything else is keyboard-driven at that point. One edge case I ran into that almost made me drop the tool: if you have multiple monitors and use the built-in Windows virtual desktop switching with Ctrl+Win+Left/Right, Desktops does not always sync correctly after a monitor disconnect-reconnect cycle. Windows resets its internal desktop state on reconnection, and Desktops' tray icon shows the old count. The workaround is straightforward but not obvious. You open the Desktops settings window, click the Reset button, and restart the process. It takes about ten seconds. I added a note to my morning routine to restart it after any display configuration change. This happens most often when I plug in my laptop to an external monitor at the office and then unplug it at home. Another thing people miss about this tool is that it does not create true virtual machines or separate sessions. It still runs on top of Windows' existing virtual desktop architecture. If you need isolation—like running a potentially malicious script in a sandboxed environment—you are looking at a VM or Windows Sandbox, not this. Desktops is purely a workflow organization layer. It manages window placement and desktop assignment. It does not sandbox processes, isolate network traffic, or provide separate user contexts. Being clear about that boundary prevents a lot of confused support requests.
Get the Full Details
There are also known limitations with full-screen applications. Games and some video playback software grab exclusive mode and sometimes ignore the desktop assignment rules. If you move a full-screen game to a background desktop, it may flicker or briefly minimize when you switch away from it. The workaround is to keep games on desktop 1, your primary desktop, and never assign them to secondary workspaces. This is a minor inconvenience unless you game on the same machine you work on, in which case it is just part of the setup. The grouping feature is worth mentioning because it is underutilized. You can name groups of desktops and switch between groups rather than individual desktops. I have a Work group containing desktops 1 through 4 and a Personal group containing 5 and 6. Switching between groups uses a different shortcut, so I can context-switch between work mode and personal mode without passing through every intermediate desktop. It sounds like a small thing, but it reduces accidental desktop switches by maybe eighty percent once you are used to it.
Setup And Configuration Walkthrough
After extracting the zip, run Desktops.exe from an elevated prompt if you want it to start on login, or add a shortcut to your startup folder. Open the Settings dialog from the tray icon. The main panels are Keyboard Shortcuts, Desktop Layout, Application Assignment, and Taskbar Behavior. Configure them in that order. For the desktop layout, set how many desktops you need. Four is the sweet spot for most people. Six is the upper limit before the benefits taper off. More than six desktops means you are spending more time navigating between them than actually working. I have seen people create twelve desktops and then never use half of them. Keep it tight. In Application Assignment, use the Process column to add executables. Type the full path or just the executable name. Wildcards are supported, so *.exe works for broad assignments. For example, assigning chrome.exe to desktop 1 means every new Chrome window opens there, but only if Desktops is running when you launch it. If you start Chrome before starting Desktops, existing windows stay where they are. You have to manually move them once, and then the rule takes effect going forward.
The Taskbar Behavior panel lets you set per-desktop visibility rules. The options are Show On All, Show Only On Active, and Hide Always. I use Show Only On Active for desktops 2 and 3, and Hide Always for everything else. This keeps the screen real estate clean without losing access to the taskbar when I need it. Export your configuration once you are satisfied. The Save button writes everything to %USERPROFILE%\.sysinternals\Desktops.json. Back up that file. If you reinstall Windows or move to a new machine, restoring takes three clicks: copy the file back, run Desktops.exe, and reload. Everything comes back exactly as you left it.
When This Tool Is Not The Right Answer
If you only use two virtual desktops and switch between them once a day, the built-in Windows feature is sufficient. Desktops adds complexity that you do not need. The learning curve is roughly two days of muscle memory development. After that, it is automatic, but the initial period requires conscious effort. If you run resource-intensive applications across many desktops, be aware that each additional desktop still consumes RAM for window management overhead. On a machine with 16GB or less, eight or more desktops with heavy applications can become sluggish. The overhead is small per desktop—maybe fifty to one hundred megabytes—but it adds up. Monitor your memory usage with Task Manager if you are pushing past six desktops with substantial applications open. For enterprise environments with managed devices, note that Group Policy can block the execution of unsigned or unsigned-binaries from arbitrary folders. Desktops.exe is signed, but if your IT policy restricts execution from non-standard paths, you may need to place the executable in an approved location or request an exception. This is a common roadblock in corporate settings and worth checking before you spend time configuring it.
The tool is developed by Mark Russinovich and the Sysinternals team, which means it is legitimate, regularly updated, and free. There is no paid tier, no telemetry opt-out debate, no account required. It just runs. That simplicity is part of why it has stayed relevant across Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11. The core interface has changed very little in a decade. That is both a strength and a weakness. The UI looks dated compared to modern Windows settings, but it is also predictable and fast. I have been running this exact configuration on Windows 11 for about eighteen months across three different machines. The consistency of the workflow is what keeps me coming back to it. The initial setup takes thirty minutes. The daily time savings are measurable if you track them, and most people I talk to who try it end up keeping it running permanently, even if they tweak the shortcuts a few times over the first week. The JSON config file I mentioned earlier supports comments, which is rare for this kind of tool. If you export your config and open it in any text editor, you can add notes to specific rules. I keep a comment on my dev desktop assignment explaining why I chose that particular combination of applications, so when I revisit it months later I do not have to guess why I set it up that way. This is a small feature that prevents a lot of confusion during periodic reviews of your setup.
If you want to experiment without breaking your current workflow, install Desktops alongside the built-in virtual desktops and use it on a secondary monitor or in a test profile first. Do not switch your primary machine overnight. Give yourself a week to adjust the shortcuts and assignment rules, then commit. The tool is stable enough that most issues come from user configuration rather than the software itself.
