Windows 10’s Virtual Desktops are an underappreciated power-user feature, giving you a way to group windows into their own spaces for more powerful multitasking. Now, Microsoft is adding custom desktop backgrounds, letting you give each desktop a unique wallpaper.
This change is part of Windows 10 Insider build 21337, which was released on March 17, 2021. It will likely appear in a stable form in Windows 10’s 21H2 Update, which is planned for release in the latter half of 2021—likely in October 2021.
Once you have the update installed, you’ll be able to head to Settings > Personalization > Background to set this up. Simply left-clicking a background here will set it as the background for only your current virtual desktop. You can right-click a background image on this Settings page and assign it to a specific virtual desktop, too. Or, even easier, you can right-click a virtual desktop thumbnail in Task View and select “Choose Background.”
Advertisement
Your chosen background will appear both on that virtual desktop and in the thumbnails on the Task View screen.
There’s one more improvement to virtual desktops in this Insider build, too: You can now drag and drop virtual desktop thumbnails in the Task View interface to rearrange them.
Windows 10’s May 2020 Update already added the ability to set custom names for each desktop, so Microsoft is slowly making Windows 10’s virtual desktops even more powerful.
RELATED: What's New in Windows 10's November 2021 Update [21H2]
If you haven’t tried virtual desktops yet, they’re accessible in the Task View interface. Press Windows+Tab or click the “Task View” icon to the right of Cortana on your taskbar to open it. You’ll see the virtual desktops at the top of the Task View screen. You can drag an open window from this screen to another virtual desktop, and click the thumbnails to switch between them.
Advertisement
Windows 10 also has some convenient keyboard and touchpad shortcuts for quickly switching between virtual desktops.
The Best Tech Newsletter Anywhere
Join 425,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of features, articles, news, and trivia.
By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
RELATED: How to Quickly Switch Between Virtual Desktops on Windows 10
Virtual desktops aren’t new to Windows. In Windows 10, it was a simple matter to create a separate desktop so that, for example, you could have one desktop for one project and a second for another, or one for your work and a second for your personal apps.
However, in Windows 11, there has been an upgrade. Now, you can also have a different wallpaper for each desktop, making it easier to distinguish one from another [and offering you a different mood, depending on what you’re using it for]. And there are a number of other features that make the use of virtual desktops easy and efficient. Note that some of these were actually introduced in Windows 10, but together with the new features of Windows 11, they make a handy toolbox.
Create a virtual desktop
To create a new virtual desktop:
- Hover over or click on the “Task view” icon in your taskbar [it’s the one that looks like one square superimposed on another].
- Click on the “New desktop” thumbnail.
You can also use key combination Win+Ctrl+D; in that case, you’ll immediately find yourself in your new desktop.
You can now place different apps in your separate desktops. Move from one desktop to the other by clicking the “Task view” icon. [You can also move around by using the familiar Alt-Tab key combination, which will take you to all the apps in one desktop and then to the apps in the next.]
To remove a desktop:
- Hover over or click the “Task view”icon.
- Hover over the virtual desktop you want to remove and click the “X” in the upper right corner.
Personalize your desktops
With Windows 11, you can now personalize your desktops, making it easier to dedicate each one to a separate function. There are several ways to do this.
Choose different wallpaper
You can have a different background for each virtual desktop. It’s quite simple:
- Click on the “Task view” icon in the taskbar.
- Right click on the desktop you want to change.
- Click on “Choose background.”
This will bring you to the Personalization > Background page, where you can choose either an image for your background, a solid color, or arrange for a slideshow. You can then browse your photos for your choice of image[s] to use and decide the type of fit you want for your image [for example, you can tile or stretch image].
Name your desktop
Your desktops will be automatically assigned the rather boring titles of “Desktop 1,” “Desktop 2,” etc. You can change that easily by giving each desktop a name.
- Click on or hover over the “Task view” icon.
- Click on the name of the desktop you want to change.
- Type in the new name.
Rearrange your desktops
You may want to change the order of the desktops in order to make it easier to remember which to use when. This is also very simple.
- Click on or hover over the “Task view” icon.
- Click and hold on the desktop you want to move and drag it to its new position.
Use the same app on different desktops
If you are already using an app on one desktop and open it in another, you will be using a different version of that app — for example, you can use Chrome to look at Twitter on one desktop and to do some work research on another. [Be aware that some apps may not work this way yet — for example, when I tried to open Notion in a second desktop, my computer jumped to the desktop where it was already open.]
While this is handy, you may want to run the same app with the same data in both — or all — of your desktops. [Note: this is not new to Windows 11, but it’s good to know.] To do this:
- Click on the “Task view” icon.
- Right-click on the app you want to use in the other desktop.
- Select “Show this window on all desktops” if you want to duplicate a single window from that app.
- Select “Show windows from this app on all desktops” if you want to duplicate any window that you use in that app.