What's New in the Latest Version - Actual Virtual Desktops

May 28, 2013
New Beta Versions are Available

April 12, 2013
New Version 7.5.1 - Service Release

March 25, 2013
New Version 7.5 - Hotkeys for Popular System Commands, Put into Divider Tile at Startup, Improved Task Switcher in Windows 8

February 19, 2013
New Version 7.4.3 - Service Release

February 5, 2013
New Version 7.4.2 - Service Release

December 31, 2012
New Version 7.4.1 - Service Release

December 18, 2012
New Version 7.4 - Web Picture Sources for Background Wallpaper Slideshow, Classic Start Menu Integrated for Windows Vista/7/8

Actual Virtual Desktops Full Changelog

[!] Important [+] New [-] Fixed error [*] Changes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.5.1 (12.04.2013) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [-] Windows x64: In some environments, memory might leak gradually in the Control Center. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.5 (25.03.2013) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [!] Global system hooks are replaced with the hooks local for each process. This should fix some known compatibility problems (e.g. with Lotus Notes, Adobe Acrobat) and also improve the overall stability. [*] Hotkeys now work in applications (mostly, video games) that use DirectInput to provide keyboard/mouse control (e.g. Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Battlefield 3, etc.). [*] List of hotkey actions can be filtered by hotkey category (Virtual Desktops, Tools, Custom). [-] Windows 7: If Internet Explorer is already open, launching a new instance of it opened an unwanted extra window. [-] The bottom of title buttons was clipped in JRiver Media Center window. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.4.3 (19.02.2013) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [*] Compatibility with MAXQDA is improved. [-] In some cases specific window settings did not apply to 64-bit applications (e.g. Waterfox). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.4.2 (05.02.2013) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [*] Compatibility with PTC products (Creo, Windchill, Arbortext, Mathcad, Integrity) is improved. [*] Virtual Desktops Switcher now looks correct in the systems with the right-to-left writing language installed (like Hebrew, Arabic, etc.). [*] Program dialogs now look correct in the systems with the right-to-left writing language installed (like Hebrew, Arabic, etc.). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.4.1 (31.12.2012) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] The ability to toggle the logging on-the-fly in the Log window is added. [+] The ability to open the Configuration window for certain window settings or an exclusion by double-clicking its entry in the Log window is added. [*] Compatibility with Adobe Premiere is improved. [*] Title buttons now look correct in the systems with the right-to-left writing language installed (like Hebrew, Arabic, etc.). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.4 (18.12.2012) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [*] Additional title buttons work correct in Mozilla Thunderbird 17. [*] Compatibility with JRiver Media Center 18 is finally fixed. [-] SURFCAM 6 crashed in some cases. [-] Windows 8: Virtual Desktops switcher displayed buttons for Metro applications. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.3 (22.11.2012) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [*] Compatibility with the following programs is restored: - Logitech SetPoint - WordPerfect 12 [*] Compatibility with the following programs is improved: - SmartDraw 12 - HTML-Kit Tools [*] Windows 8: Look of title buttons is improved. [*] Additional title buttons are now available in JRiver Media Center. [-] Language Bar's context menu disappeared immediately after popping up. [-] In some cases, on 64-bit systems some windows might display their caption text in Chinese. [-] The "&" symbol did not displayed in window captions. [-] Tooltips disappeared in Microsoft Office 2007 and higher. [-] Title buttons appeared on fullscreen GOM Media Player. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.2 (16.08.2012) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [!] The library file avdemb64.dll is built using another compiler so we expect the increased stability on 64-bit systems (especially on Windows 7 and Windows 8). [*] Windows Vista/7: The speed of virtual desktops switching in Independent mode is significantly increased. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.1 (07.07.2012) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] Italian language is added (translation provided by Davide Pari). [*] Compatibility with Windows 8 Release Preview is improved: - correct work with 64-bit Internet Explorer and administrative tools - correct size and look of the additional title buttons - correct placement of the multi-monitor background wallpaper pictures - improved quality of the multi-monitor background wallpaper pictures [*] Multi-monitor wallpaper cache folder is cleared upon exiting the program or closing the Configuration window. [*] RocketDock is always displayed on all virtual desktops. [*] Now it's possible to drag items between different Virtual Desktop Switchers in the Independent mode. [*] Compatibility with NVIDIA nView is improved. [*] In the Aero visual theme, now it's possible to resize a window when the mouse is over additional title buttons. [-] Virtual Desktops: Parts of Windows Media Player running in a virtual desktop appeared on another virtual desktop after switching desktops. [-] Trying to select several Window Settings items in the left panel and delete them resulted in the deletion of a single item only. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 4.0 (13.03.2012) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [!] Configuration window has been revamped. [*] Compatibility with Windows 8 Consumer Preview is improved. [*] Compatibility with Windows Snipping Tool is improved. [*] Compatibility with TechSmith's Snagit is improved. [*] Compatibility with GOM Media Player is improved. [*] Compatibility with Gyazo is improved. [*] Actual Virtual Desktops is now compatible with virtual video devices (like those added by MaxiVista or iDisplay). [*] Virtual Desktops: The Independent mode is improved. [*] The "C" command line option has been modified: now it expects a fully qualified name of a folder that contains alternative configuration files to load. [-] In some rare cases, window settings did not re-apply after modification. [-] Crashes in dwm.exe happened occasionally. [-] In some cases, Control Center might crash upon reloading the configuration. [-] When launching Actual Virtual Desktops after Stardock DeskScapes, Windows Explorer crashed or became unstable. [-] With Actual Virtual Desktops running, capturing a video in TechSmith's Jing made it crash upon closing. [-] Actual Virtual Desktops crashed when trying to toggle the Virtual Desktops Switcher. [-] Virtual Desktops Switcher had numerous problems in the Independent mode. [-] Title buttons did not appear in the Windows Media Center window. [-] Additional commands did not appear in the Windows Media Center window menu after switching its window back from full-screen. [-] Saving the configuration changed the active virtual desktop to a first desktop in the list. [-] Configuration windows stayed out of sight when they were located on a secondary monitor and the monitor got disabled. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 3.2.2 (22.11.2011) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [-] Sometimes the dwm.exe process crashed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 3.2.1 (11.11.2011) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] Auto-scrolling of tabs in the Settings dialog is added so the active tab should remain always visible and other tabs fill the entire visible space. [-] Title button did not update its placement in Mozilla Firefox 7 windows after maximizing/restoring a window. [-] In some cases, console windows might hung for some time at startup. [-] Some Configuration windows (like Select Window from List, Test Regexp) did not return into a visible area after their last monitor was disconnected. [-] Sometimes, empty match lines appeared in the Test Regexp results. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 3.2 (21.10.2011) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] Norwegian language is added (translation provided by Stale Pedersen). [+] Ability is added to toggle the "Run the library from the installation folder" option via program's command line (use the L+/L- command line option to turn this option on/off, accordingly; by default, this option is off). [*] Window rules (specifics and exclusions) are now compatible with windows of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. [*] Compatibility with many Adobe products is improved (however, some functions may be unavailable yet). [*] Compatibility with Mindjet's MindManager is improved. [*] Compatibility with TechSmith's SnagIt is improved. [*] Tracking of window caption changes is improved (in particular, for own Actual Virtual Desktops configuration dialogs). [*] Title buttons look and behave correctly in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 windows. [-] Microsoft Excel 2007/2010 crashed after opening/closing the Chart Source Data dialog. [-] Various Adobe products (like Photoshop, Flash, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Illustrator) crashed upon exiting. [-] Autodesk Softimage hung at startup if Actual Virtual Desktops was running. [-] Virtual Desktops Switchers displayed even when the "Enable virtual desktops" option was off. [-] After activating the Independent mode for virtual desktops, wallpaper settings lost for a monitor with no virtual desktops. [-] Virtual Desktops Switcher in the Independent mode did not react correctly on switching a monitor on/off. [-] Opening first Firefox 7 window on one virtual desktop and then opening second window on another activated the first virtual desktop unwantedly. [-] Title buttons' glow effect looked wrong with non-standard values of Screen DPI. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 3.1 (01.08.2011) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] Indonesian language is added (translation provided by Elda Taluta). [*] Windows Vista/7: When installing a new version, special system mechanism is used to avoid the reboot after updating program's runtime library. [-] In some cases, Virtual Desktops facility crashed in multi-monitor systems. [-] Windows Vista/7: Sometimes Actual Virtual Desktops caused Desktop Window Manager's crash. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 3.0.2 (11.07.2011) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [-] Multi-monitor wallpapers looked wrong if there were portrait-oriented monitors. [-] Console windows hung for 5 seconds after launching. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 3.0.1 (25.05.2011) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [*] Virtual Desktop Switcher reacts correctly on visual theme changes. [-] The Move to All Desktops option stopped working. [-] Actual Virtual Desktops hung when trying to update a preview for a hung application. [-] Sometimes Actual Virtual Desktops crashed while displaying a multi-preview. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 3.0 (01.05.2011) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [!] The Virtual Desktops facility allows having independent lists of virtual desktops on different monitors. Each monitor can display its own Virtual Desktops Switcher. [+] The ability is added to duplicate the Virtual Desktops Switcher on all available monitors. [*] Compatibility with the fullscreen mode of Adobe Flash Player is improved. [*] Virtual Desktops Switcher more accurately detects the switching of a fullscreen window to windowed state. [*] Virtual Desktops Switcher looks and behaves more accurately in the Aero visual theme. [-] Crashes of skinned Media Monkey windows are fixed. [-] Edit boxes worked incorrect with large values. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 2.5 (11.02.2011) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] The ability to add custom hotkeys for certain actions is added (see the "Options - Hotkeys" tab). [+] The ability to backup/restore the configuration is added (see the Backup/Restore buttons in the Configuration toolbar). [*] The separate Start/Stop Actual Virtual Desktops hotkeys are replaced with the single Toggle Actual Virtual Desktops hotkey. [-] Virtual Desktops Switcher disappeared after switching desktops. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 2.4 (19.11.2010) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] The glow effect when hovering the extra title button with the mouse pointer in Aero visual theme is added. [+] Title buttons' skins for the Black and Silver Office 2007 styles are added. [+] The option to select which kind of click (single or double) on the program's tray icon is used to launch the Configuration is added. [*] Specific Settings list and Exclusions list do not display the value of criterion (class, caption, program) for a certain item if the criterion in this item is disabled. [*] Configuration panels can be scrolled with the mouse wheel. [-] Title buttons did not work in Office 2010 64-bit edition. [-] Title buttons disappeared after moving a window to secondary monitor on some display configurations. [-] If the Configuration window was closed on a secondary monitor and then the monitor had been unplugged - the Configuration window had not returned into a visible desktop area. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 2.3 (04.08.2010) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] Support of regular expressions has been added for the Window Caption criterion. [-] Title buttons did not appear in MS Office 2010 applications. [-] Title buttons interfered with the tabs dragging in Google Chrome under Windows 7. [-] At the high load on the system (with dozens of windows opened at once), the program began to consume too much graphic resources under Windows 7 x64. [-] Creating/modifying window settings from the Windows Monitoring Log window did not work. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 2.2 (03.06.2010) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] The ability to create specific window settings from the Windows Monitoring Log window is added. [*] The default key combinations for the Move to Next/Previous Virtual Desktop window actions have been changed to Win+\ instead of Win+= and Win+Shift+\ instead of Win+Shift+=, accordingly, because of conflicts with Windows 7 reserved hotkey. [*] Now Vista SideBar widgets are visible on all virtual desktops. [*] Administrative tools (like Regedit, Event Viewer, etc.) are now extended in Vista/7. [*] Support of console windows under Windows 7 is improved. [-] Title buttons were drawn incorrectly in windows using right-to-left languages. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 2.1 (12.02.2010) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [!] The console windows support is available on Windows 7. [!] Checking for updates online by contacting Actual Tools website and retrieving information about latest version available has been added. The check process can be launched either automatically with the defined period (daily, weekly, monthly) or manually by pressing the Check Now button (see the "Check for Updates" group in the General Options panel). [+] All executable files (including setups) are digitally signed. [+] The option to prevent running the library from the %Temp% folder has been added (see the "Run the library from the installation folder" option in the "Control Center Options" group). [+] The ability to customize the background color for the "Single picture" wallpaper mode is added. [+] New "Crop to fit" wallpaper position mode has been added. [+] New hotkey combinations to suspend/resume the Control Center (Ctrl+Alt+Num-/Ctrl+Alt+Num+ by default, respectively) have been added. Please note that they are disabled by default. [+] The ability to turn off automatic switching of virtual desktops has been added (see the "Virtual Desktops Options" group in the Virtual Desktops tab). [*] The Virtual Desktops Switcher now correctly displays the Unicode window captions. [*] Tracking of window caption changes has been improved. [-] The problem with the not responding Control Center while logging off is fixed. [-] Intermittent crashes of Control Center after reboot are fixed. [-] The intermittent crashes of applications written in Visual Basic have been fixed. [-] Title buttons looked and placed incorrectly in non-standard screen DPIs (e.g. if the "Large fonts" option was enabled). [-] After suspending/resuming Control Center, windows weren't returned to their assigned virtual desktops. [-] The bug with interrupted Desktop Background Slideshow feature in Windows 7 has been fixed. [-] The unwanted automatic cyclic switching of virtual desktops has been fixed. [-] The bug with corrupted icons in the Virtual Desktop Switcher has been fixed. [-] After minimizing and then restoring Photoshop CS4 there was a redundant set of title buttons. [-] The bug with the blurred title buttons in Windows Explorer windows under Vista Aero has been fixed. [-] Crash of some programs (e.g. WinZip 14 Professional) when using system menu commands has been fixed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 2.0 (12.08.2009) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [!] Virtual Desktops Switcher window is added: it displays a set of toolbars (one toolbar per virtual desktop) where each toolbar shows the icons of applications running on its corresponding virtual desktop. You can toggle this Switcher window via special hotkey (Alt+` by default). [+] Windows Thumbnails feature is added. Once enabled, it creates a small preview copy for each running window (either visible or hidden) and displays this preview as a visual tip over Virtual Desktops Switcher buttons. [+] The ability to shift the extra title button along title bar is added. [*] Virtual Desktops panel is slightly redesigned: - background and hotkey settings are divided onto separate tabs; - the Switcher settings group is added. [-] The bug is fixed: in full screen applications (like games) title buttons were though invisible but still active and responded to mouse clicks. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 1.2 (08.04.2009) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [+] Now virtual desktops support the extra multi-monitor settings for their wallpapers. [+] The option to make additional title buttons Office 2007-like is added. [+] The Description field is added for Exclusions. [*] The amount of consumed Windows graphics resources is decreased significantly (this prevents the resource exhaustion when too many windows stay open). [*] Now hotkeys in active window work even if it has no title bar. [*] Now Settings dialog remembers its Maximized state between sessions. [-] The bug in Settings dialog with non-disappearing horizontal scroll bar is fixed. [-] Now the additional title buttons and system window menu items work as expected in Windows Live Mail. [-] Now console windows are correctly extended in the zero user session on Windows XP SP3 and Windows 2003. [-] The long unwanted pause, when closing console windows via Close title button, is removed. [-] The incorrect behavior of Virtual Desktops (activating hidden windows, such as Sound Volume Control, unintentionally activated the first virtual desktop), is fixed. [-] The incorrect behavior of Virtual Desktops under Windows Vista, when using the Alt+Tab key combination (the appearance of the Task Switcher window unintentionally activated the first virtual desktop), is fixed. [-] Now virtual desktops with custom wallpaper correctly consider the Desktop Background settings of the Remote Desktop Client. [-] The crash of Windows Vista Snipping Tool, when closing it, is fixed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 1.1 (16.10.2008) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [*] Now the title button looks fully native under Windows Vista Aero. [*] Now you can cancel the changes of Target Window edit fields made with the Window Finder by pressing the Escape key. [*] The overall stability is improved when running on Windows x64. [-] The bug caused the Explorer crash when trying to delete files under Windows Vista/2008 x64 is fixed. [-] Now the change of order in the list of virtual desktops is handled correctly. [-] Now the tool windows of Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Flash CS3 are processed correctly when switching between desktops. [-] The reaction on Win+D system hotkey is improved. [-] The compatibility with windows of Mozilla applications (Firefox, Thunderbird) is improved. [-] Now the custom wallpaper is preserved correctly while running via the Remote Desktop connection. [-] No more crashes of NoteZilla when closing its Preferences dialog. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actual Virtual Desktops 1.0 (04.07.2008) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [!] Initial Release