AltDesk 1.8 on Giveawayoftheday (Sept 2, 2008)

[lanux128]

• http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

[Armando]

Thanks Lanux. I installed it and it seems to work very well. Light resources consumption. I changed the skin to "Toolbar", so it fits well wit my GUI. I usually don't use these tools after a while but this one doesn't seem to intrusive, so we'll see...

[Darwin]

Hmm... that's interesting, Armando. May I *should* take a look at this (before the Giveaway is over!). My experience with these sorts of apps is similar to yours - I don't use them much, if at all, and they require significant resource allocation to run in the background waiting for those times when I *do* use them...

[Deozaan]

It's currently at 50%/50% with many people in the comments recommending Microsoft's multidesktop PowerToy.

Anyone else have any opinions yet?

[Armando]

Darwin : Exactly. It uses about 4mb, abit less, a bit more... Like I said, I'll try it a bit since I got it for free, but I don't have huge expectations as I tend to not use multiple desktop features for too long before I decide it's just one more stuff to think about (ie : organized my windows in groups!). Still, it could be useful if you work on different projects and really want to keep things separate. And this will be the case in the next few months, more than ever.

Deozan : To me, it works better Microsoft's multidesktop PowerToy, in terms of responsiveness, design, options... and maybe better-simpler than most other solutions I tried... But it's just an opinion... As I don't have the time to do a full featured analysis-comparison at this time. 

 There are a couple of well written and detailed revies on the Web site. These are the ones I read before installing altDesk

[Darwin]

Thanks for the Toolbar skin pointer, Armando  That increases my appreciation of the application 10-fold! I wasn't too keen on the supplied skins, given that I run my XP box in Classic view mode. I can confirm, too, that AltDesk's RAM usage is minimal...

Sadly, I just can't see myself using this 

[lanux128]

AltDesk comes from the reputable makers of AstonShell which i have seen being used on a friend's PC. although i'm not much of virtual desktop user to provide a proper comparison.

[Armando]

Thanks for the Toolbar skin pointer, Armando  That increases my appreciation of the application 10-fold! I wasn't too keen on the supplied skins, given that I run my XP box in Classic view mode. I can confirm, too, that AltDesk's RAM usage is minimal...

Sadly, I just can't see myself using this 

-Darwin (September 02, 2008, 04:10 PM)

Well... here's the deal    I won't use it much either. But I know it will be handy from time to time. So I've just configured two shortcuts (ctrl+shift+1, ctrl+shift+2) to move from one desktop to the other, and I will only use it when I work on on many projects and have too many windows opened.

And the "Move tasks to this desktop" option (right click on bar>Advanced>Move tasks to this desktop) is convenient when you're finished working in multiple spaces and want to get back to a normal desktop again...

I guess I see that as more convenient choice. The application is not intrusive at all and so I'll keep it and see...

[Darwin]

The application is not intrusive at all and so I'll keep it and see...

-Armando (September 02, 2008, 08:41 PM)

That's exactly where I am with it... Though I'd forgotten that it was there until I was notified of your reply to this thread! I'm going to have to make a conscious effort to get to know it 

[Grorgy]

That's my problem with these as well, I don't feel the need for the function mostly and when I do I forget anyway    Stardock have one too, though I can't remember what it was like. (It is a part object desktop, don't know if it comes separately.)