Virtual Desktops Manager from Windows Sysinternals

Computers development is moving fast in different directions. Your monitors become bigger and the screen resolution – better. At the same time, the amount of applications, shortcuts, widgets, and other useful elements you would like to keep handy, may grow faster, than the ability to place on your desktop. The common solution available is offered by multiple virtual desktops. You can define them by users, if multiple users utilize the same computer, or by functions, for example – one desktop for business, another – for leisure, or keeping in mind some other objectives.

There are multiple software programs, both freeware and commercial versions, addressing these needs, and we are going to present today the tiny 60-KB utility from Windows Sysinternals (owned by Microsoft) is a simple way to set up four virtual desktops on your system.

Desktops utility allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you're not using. After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys.

Unlike other virtual desktop utilities that implement their desktops by showing the windows that are active on a desktop and hiding the rest, Sysinternals Desktops uses a Windows desktop object for each desktop. Application windows are bound to a desktop object when they are created, so Windows maintains the connection between windows and desktops and knows which ones to show when you switch a desktop. That making Sysinternals Desktops very lightweight and free from bugs that the other approach is prone to where their view of active windows becomes inconsistent with the visible windows.

Desktops reliance on Windows desktop objects means that it cannot provide some of the functionality of other virtual desktop utilities, however. For example, Windows doesn't provide a way to move a window from one desktop object to another, and because a separate Explorer process must run on each desktop to provide a taskbar and start menu, most tray applications are only visible on the first desktop. Further, there is no way to delete a desktop object, so Desktops does not provide a way to close a desktop, because that would result in orphaned windows and processes. The recommended way to exit Desktops is therefore to logoff.

Website: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881

Download: http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Desktops.zip

Alternative program we observed earlier - Dexpot. Feel free to check it, if you like the idea, but need to explore more features-rich utility.

Enhancing Computer Performance with CloneSpy

Why was CloneSpy written?

Do you often download files from the Internet? Is your hard drive crowded with these files? Have you ever asked yourself which files you have downloaded more than once? Perhaps you have burned files to a CD and retrieved them again? Do you want to find these files and eliminate the duplicates? Maybe you want to find duplicate files without checking your entire collection of backup CDs every time? Then CloneSpy is the right tool for you!

What can CloneSpy do?

CloneSpy can help you free up hard drive space by detecting and removing duplicate files. Duplicate files have exactly the same contents regardless of their name, date, time and location. Also, CloneSpy is able to find files that are not exactly identical, but have the same file name. Perhaps you have different versions of a file and you want to find all of them and remove the older versions. CloneSpy can also find zero length files. These are files that have no content.

With CloneSpy you can process files which

* are duplicates
* are duplicates and have the same file name
* have the same file name
* have the same file name and (approximately) the same size
* are zero bytes long

CloneSpy offers you a complete mechanism for determining which duplicate or same-name files should be removed. It is also possible to leave this decision up to the individual user.

CloneSpy can handle equal files by:

* deleting redundant files
* moving redundant files to a specific folder
* exporting a list of all equal files without removing any files
* deferring file operations on redundant files to a batch file where you can apply arbitrary file operations

With CloneSpy you can build checksum files from files on CDs (or even on hard drives, etc.) and use them to check whether these files already exist on your system.

Who can benefit from CloneSpy?

This free portable and light utility will be useful for any computer users, especially advanced computer geeks and software addicts. It is not recommended to the newbies, as deletion of the files that are essential for your computer operation can lead to the severe damage of the operation system or the important utilities installed on your hard Drive. While you are absolutely personally control the process of the files removal, be careful making any decisions. With all that, cleaning your system might bring huge benefits to improve your system performance. I absolutely recommend keeping the software a part of your PC maintenance “toolbox”, as it can be executed from USB external drive and does not require installation on your Hard Drive.

Developers’ website: http://www.clonespy.com/

Direct downloading link: http://www.clonespy.com/english/download/cspy304.exe