In this article I will show how the Windows 10 virtual desktops help keep my brain organized for Office 365 development. It allows me to keep my Chrome Primary work profile for email etc completely separate from my developer tenat Chrome profile. It helps keep me more organized when working on multiple projects as well.

Background

Anyone who has more than one development and primary Office 365 account has come across the age old problem of which environment am I currently working in. Using Chrome profiles as a number of people have blogged about has been a huge help in this. Having a Chrome profile for dev tenant and profile for primary account (work email etc) is a huge help.

But the downside is many instances of chrome floating around and when you click on a link in Outlook it opens in the last Chrome window you were working on – which is frustrating at the best of times when your dev tenant says you dont have access to your primary email (duh) and then you have to hunt down the primary profile window and go back to outlook and start again.

Windows 10 Virtual Desktop

This is where the virtual desktop has really become my best friend for Office365 development. In the latest version of Windows 10 you can easily make a virtual desktop by adding the “Show Task View button” from the context menu when right clicking on the windows task bar.

Clicking on the Task icon brings up the option to create a new virtual desktop and also a view of some of things you have worked on recently.

Opening a new virtual desktop everything is blank and you can open Chrome and go to your dev chrome profile happily.

Switching between desktops

You can go through the process of Task View and clicking on the desktop you want

OR

You can use CTRL-WINDOWSKEY-Left/Right to navigate back and forth between the desktops. They don’t cycle but if you only have two then Left or Right isn’t that hard 🙂

Clicking a link in outlook

If I am working in desktop 2 (O365Dev) and I go back to Desktop 1(primary O365), clicking a link in the primary O365 Outlook opens the link in the primary desktop chrome profile. Always.

YAY 🙂

Mentally this also helps me keep my Director day job (primary O365) and dev environment (xomino365) separate and makes life easier.

It’s not for everyone but really helps me 🙂

Extra Bonus shortcut

I discovered by accident (as you do) that you can create a new Virtual desktop using the CTRL key and a three-finger down swipe on the laptop.