Does Windows 10 come with virtual desktop?

When Microsoft finally added virtual desktop support to Windows 10, my productivity instantly skyrocketed. Virtual desktops create secondary [and tertiary, and..] home screens for your PC, each running instances of its own software, that you can quickly hop between. They’re one of the . But every time I profess my love for virtual desktops I inevitably get asked, “What do you use them for?”

I can only speak to my own experiences, of course. I like segregating my work software from my play software, to resist the allure of Discord and GeForce Now when I’m on the clock. Virtual desktops also come in handy if I’m working on several complicated projects at once—each one gets its own desktop. But don’t just take my word for it! Buried deep in a revolving around using Win + Shift +  to shift windows between your monitors [], I found an where real people were sharing how they use virtual desktops.

Reddit user

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kicked things off with a use case that mirrors my own. “[Virtual desktops aren’t] bad for focus if you’re disciplined about it, but I think it really shines when you have a multi-step project you’re working on that’s layout sensitive, or having to juggle a couple projects simultaneously.”

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said using them should making running online Dungeons & Dragons campaigns much easier, which

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expanded on. “A lot of the time you have a ton of space being taken up by the actual online D&D tool, but you can also set up a whole desktop of relevant documentation, notes, etc., that can come up at a keypress, rather than shuffling windows. You could even stage documents for several encounters that way. Think of it as a way to very easily switch between groups of arranged windows.”

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Windows 10’s Task View: The top of the screen shows all your virtual desktops, the middle shows the apps running in the current desktop, and the bottom shows Timeline. [Click image to enlarge it.]

Now that’s practical—and damned helpful for overwhelmed DMs.

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uses virtual desktops to segregate types of tools, rather than discrete projects. “I use multiple desktops to organize applications based on activity,” they wrote. “Communication [Teams, Email, etc] on one desktop, coding on another [IDE, terminal, all the browser tabs], etc.”

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breaks out virtual desktop when legal research gets too complex for their ultrawide monitor. “Maybe I’ll need to compare an old version of a statute with the new one or compare one regulation to another. That will go into side-by-side windows in a separate desktop,” they wrote. “Maybe I’ll also need to track down some case law. I’ll start a new desktop and start collecting. Depending on my needs, maybe I’ll segregate my jurisdiction’s cases in one browser window, other jurisdictions’ cases in another window, and maybe I’ll put some secondary resources [e.g., dictionaries, treatises] in a third window. And if there are multiple topics, I’ll often research them in separate desktops.”

So there you have it: Five different ways that five different users [including yours truly] get more done with virtual desktops. If you stew on it a bit you might just come up with a unique use case for your own particular work flow—and you might just be blown away by how much time and hassle this feature can save. Our guide to explains everything you need to know to get started, step-by-step and keyboard shortcut-by-keyboard shortcut. Enjoy your newfound productivity!

Today, we’re excited to announce that Windows Virtual Desktop is now generally available worldwide. Windows Virtual Desktop is the only service that delivers simplified management, a multi-session Windows 10 experience, optimizations for Office 365 ProPlus, and support for Windows Server Remote Desktop Services [RDS] desktops and apps. With Windows Virtual Desktop, you can deploy and scale your Windows desktops and apps on Azure in minutes.

Since we announced Windows Virtual Desktop last September, and through the public preview announced in March, thousands of customers have piloted the service and taken advantage of the Windows 10 multi-session capability—validating the importance of this feature as a core part of the service. Customers also represented, all major industries and geographies, helping us get feedback from different customer types and locations. As a result, as of today the service is now available in all geographies. In addition, the Windows Virtual Desktop client is available across Windows, Android, Mac, iOS, and HTML 5.

“Windows Virtual Desktop allows our employees to work in a secure manner wherever they are. Windows Virtual Desktop provides the Windows 10 desktop experience that our employees are familiar with across a variety of devices or web browsers.”
—Jake Hovermale, Chief Technical Officer, BEI Networks

With the end of extended support for Windows 7 coming in January 2020, we also understand some customers need to continue to support Windows 7 legacy applications as they migrate to Windows 10. To support this need, you can use Windows Virtual Desktop to virtualize Windows 7 desktops with free Extended Security Updates [ESU] until January 2023. If you’re in the process of migrating to Windows 10 and need app compatibility assistance, read more about how we can help with the Desktop App Assure program.

To help increase productivity, we invested heavily in the Office experience in a virtualized environment with native improvements, as well as through the acquisition of FSLogix. In July, we made the FSLogix technology available to Microsoft 365, Windows 10 Enterprise, and RDS customers. Today, all FSLogix tools are fully integrated into Windows Virtual Desktop, enabling you to have the smoothest, most performant Office virtualization experience available today.

In addition to the significant architectural improvements for deployment and management, we’re also simplifying app delivery by supporting MSIX packaged apps to be dynamically “attached” to a virtual machine instead of installing it permanently. This is important because it significantly decreases storage and makes it easier for the admin to manage and update the apps, while creating a seamless experience for the user.

Check out the new video from Scott Manchester, Principal Engineering Lead for Windows Virtual Desktop, where he does a great job of walking you through the app “attach” experience.

Windows Virtual Desktop is now released and ready for production!

Watch the video

Extending Windows Virtual Desktop

We also worked closely with our partner ecosystem to help our customers extend Windows Virtual Desktop and get the most out of existing virtualization investments.

• Starting today, Citrix can extend Windows Virtual Desktop worldwide, including support for Windows 10 multi-session, Windows 7 with free Extended Security Updates for up to three years, and support for Windows Server 2008 R2 with free Extended Security Updates on Azure.
• Later this year, VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure will extend Windows Virtual Desktop and its benefits, such as Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session and support for Windows 7 with free Extended Security Updates for up to three years. Preview will be available by the end of the calendar year.
• We also engaged with hardware partners, system integrators [SI], who provide turnkey desktop-as-a-service [DaaS] offerings, and value-added solution providers, who add capabilities such as printing, application layering, assessment, and monitoring on Azure Marketplace. Learn more about Windows Virtual Desktop partners on the documentation page.

General availability of Windows Virtual Desktop is just the beginning. We’ll continue to rapidly innovate and invest in desktop and app virtualization. We look forward to sharing more with you in the coming months. In the meantime, learn more on our product page and get started with Windows Virtual Desktop today.

If you’re a partner and want to learn more about Windows Virtual Desktop, visit the Azure Partner Zone page for Windows Virtual Desktop.

The best virtual desktop experience, delivered on Azure.

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