Windows 11: virtual desktops – de­f­i­n­i­tion and tutorial

Windows 11 comes with a built-in and active virtual desktop man­age­ment tool by default. This makes it easy to manage active ap­pli­ca­tions from the re­spec­tive active interface. There are two ways to active it:

1. Click “Active ap­pli­ca­tions” in the taskbar.
2. Use the key com­bi­na­tion [Windows] + [Shift].

If the taskbar icon isn’t available, you’ll need to activate it first. To do this, right-click on the taskbar and select the menu item “Taskbar”. In the following menu, click the “Task view” entry slider to the right (“On”).

The tool displays two areas. In the upper corner, you will see thumb­nails of windows that are currently open on your desktop. Select “X” to close the cor­re­spond­ing program. In the lower area, Windows 11 lists the (virtual) desktops. To create a new desktop, press the “New desktop” button.

Once you’ve created a new desktop, it will be listed in the “Active ap­pli­ca­tions” overview. Windows 11 au­to­mat­i­cal­ly assigns numbers to identify the different surfaces. The actual desktop is named “Desktop 1”; for all other desktops numbering is simply continued.

However, you can edit the name of a virtual desktop by right-clicking on it and choosing “Rename”.

To make a virtual desktop stand out more clearly from the standard desktop or all other virtual coun­ter­parts, you can set an in­di­vid­ual back­ground. To do this, right-click and press “Choose back­ground”.

Virtual desktops are a con­ve­nient way to manage active ap­pli­ca­tions and structure a user interface. Switching between the different in­ter­faces is simple and fast, either via mouse click or using a key com­bi­na­tion.

Desktop change via mouse click:

Call up the “Active ap­pli­ca­tions” tool via the icon in the taskbar. In the list below, you can see an overview of all available desktops. Left-click the virtual Windows 11 desktop you wish to switch to.