Why windows went for so long without Virtual Desktops? [closed]

"Windows had Virtual Desktop support in its API since at least Windows NT 41. There were multiple 3rd-party programs that made use of it, although some resorted to hiding/showing windows and keeping track of the desktops themselves.

As for why MS never included such a tool, I can only speculate, but is that something you'd sell the average customer and he'd be like ""Oh gosh, I really can use this""? Heck, even I as a pretty computer-literate user never got used to multiple desktops. I simply doubt it'd be a feature the majority of users would want and/or use.

Also, not including such a tool should definitely cut down on the ""Where are my windows gone?"" questions the support people have to answer.

1 I am only talking about the NT line of operating systems, as the API on Win 9x was very different and much more limited."

"I imagine it was simply a case of:

Users not requiring it in most cases
Those that do could do so with 3rd party software. Some of which Microsoft sold (don't want to undercut their own products now)
Given the above they probably judged it a waste of development resources."

"The standard answer for features that don't exist is that it takes a lot of effort to create them, they don't just appear in the OS for free. By effort I mean both time & money for the development & support of the said feature.

At the same time, there are probably a lot of other features that people might want at some point - since neither money or time are infinite you can only get some of the features and not others. I guess 'virtual desktops' keeps loosing the priority game for each OS version."

Not everyone appreciates Virtual desktops and even though there are applications that replicate the behaviour on Windows machines there seems to be very few that actually uses something like it. Even while I was on Linux I tried it out for a while but without multiple monitors to keep the desktops on I didn't really see the point, myself. So my answer is that the users they tested it on didn't find it useful so they didn't include it, simple as that.

"Isn't the whole point of Windows to have multiple ""Windows"" open at the same time?

The only time this really get's annoying having to many Windows open, is when you can't Alt + Tab straight to your music player or you have to skim through 20 Internet Explorer pages (back in IE6) to get somewhere without touching the mouse.

I think that if I would then spread my ""work"" around multiple desktops, it would still be a nightmare since there never was a great solution for quick switching if you have too much of the same open (lots of browser tabs and lots of Word docs for instance).

Plus I mostly keep my desktop clean, so no need for more desktop space.

Ah well, we probably all got used to not having it too much..."