Revision History

Ver 4.1 2009/09/09

Improved the windows help file, now has index and search enabled.
2727927 Extended middle mouse button desktop change & open winlist to include the taskbar
2854161 Added a hidden 'start desktop' config option (.cfg file must be hand edited)
2797845 Improved return to last desktop command to support a rapid switch
2682854 Added XP theme support for setup dialog and fixed several rc issues
2448910 Added option to install for current user or for all users
2789338 Improved error messages in case of corrupt or zero byte config file
2134867 Added "Force release of modifier keys on desktop change" option
2189263 Added improved init and system setup logging and added potential fix
2306168 Fixed setting of last active window when only preserving the Z-order
1842145 Implemented global system hook to detect window activations - new config expert setting
1971856 Added option to open menus at fix locations when hotkey is used and improved the location of the dialog - central in the primary monitor
1983857 Added copyright confirmation notice to icon submission
1942881 Fixed Z-Order of windows assigned immediately to another desktop
2036553 2036555 Implemented systray icon toggle and exit hotkey commands
2089761 Increased the max number of hotkeys to 80
1869917 Added new dynamic taskbar order feature to support Taskbar shuffle
Added dynamic taskbar button removal option as a better fix to long standing issue
1979116 Re-implement taskbar activation option to be a window rule option
1964565 Added crash handler and reimplemented showHelp to avoid rare crash
1967494 Close spawned module process handles
1919024 Implemented NAV: Return to last desktop hotkey command
1933182 Improved SetForegroundWindow so focus can be given back to desktop
1930005 Force redraw of activated window hidden using toolwin flag
1953231 Fixed handling of close message so it does exit VW if requested
1950577 Made process name string comparisons case insensitive
1956478 Added portable unicode package creation

Ver 4.0.1 2008/04/24

1924256 Moved the on-line help over to MS HTML help (chm).
1938548 Fixed systray icon tooltip when VW is disabled.
1936226 Up-dated Setup About copyright to 2008
1926893 Fixed ignore activation event flashing all linked windows.
1930012 Fixed hidden explorer activation issue.
1928095 Added WM_CLOSE message handler prompting user if they want VW to exit
1926902 Fixed link window logic bug in window list menu.
1923412 Added hotkeys for moving windows Left right up down and added enable toggle hotkey command.
1917996 Fixed hiding of FeedReader when maximized
1915723 Documented retirement of VW_WINLIST module message
1919023 Changed compact window list column cycling so all columns can be accessed
1921289 Changed the location of hidden VW window to avoid problem with Multimon
1926160 Stored flag for forced unmanaged windows and made its children unmanaged.
1926899 Added new VW_WINMANAGE module message to allow modules to force VW to (not) manage a window
1944158 1901457 Documented external interface & window list menus
Added default window rules for Excel & AdobeAcrobat to address their main window taskbar button behaviour.

Ver 4.0 2008/03/13

Creation of a new Window Rule dialog to manage userlist.cfg, tricky.cfg, sticky.cfg & assignment.cfg via a UI - no more hacking!
1819203 1810156 Window type identification can now be any combination of class, window or program name.
1798648 1796170 1627782 Changed window management to store some info about all non-child windows, allows VirtuaWin to not manage some window types and to manage others.
Removed upper limit on the number of windows that VW can manage
1844268 Added window type option to keep a window's taskbar button visible.
1843300 Rewritten main Setup hotkey configuration to allow many more different hotkeys to be created.
1820531 Added MRU window list menu as a hotkey binding
1873636 Fixed exit deadlock issue
1843056 1843056 Fixed VW & WinList taskbar detection issues.
1840887 Fixed setup option change issues.
1873639 Added program version info to the exe resource.
1911706 Removed the need for admin privileges for installer.
1906222 Added get modules button to setup dialog.
1901183 Changed window flags and changed GETWINDESK to WINGETINFO with enhanced functionality
1873544 1897011 Added new 'Group App' window rule and Gather option in window menu
1873539 Added a Re-apply Rules option to Control menu
1896828 1877997 Implemented new 'Main Window' window rule option
1896830 Reimplemented main window hide/show function to improve performance and fix minimize window hiding method
1877491 1737872 Resolved long standing pop-up window event issues.
1886979 Fixed flag problem which left windows being 'sticky'.
1887127 Automatically change window-list menu to compact.

Ver 3.2 2007/11/08

Moved the main typedefs into defines.h so they are in the SDK.
1824130 fixed vrituawin.cfg minor corruption.
1816219 Increased module start-up time-out to 20 seconds.
1800940 Allow a longer title string when compact menu is used.
1796288 Added -msg command line argument so virtuawin.exe can be used to send a message to the VW already running.
Fixed uninitialized variable which could lead to a bad icon draw request.
1766390 Fixed several issues with taskbar buttons appearing
1766352 Fixed mouse negative x position problem.
Fixed Setup's Window List menu Show item not enabling the Apply.
Added VW_DESKNAME & VW_DESKTOP_SIZE module messages.
1741445 Changed the module messages which use a WM_COPYDATA message to reply directly to the requesting module if the wParam is not 0 (assumed HWND).
1618004 Allowed direct hotkey access to desktops greater then the X*Y size, creating 'hidden' desktops. Windows on these desktops are not listed etc.
Changed the term 'Copy' to 'Show' as this gives a more temporary feel.
1479537 Added an optional 'Show' column to the Window List menu.
1549392 Increased the maximum number of desktops to 20, simple define change can increase this to 99 or more. Changed the systray icon tooltip to display the desktop name as an icon may not be available (still only 9 built in).
Improvements to WinList, including sortable columns and Hung status column.
Improved the menus, adding 'Push to Bottom', 'Always on Top', 'Move to Next' & Previous to the current window menu and greying out unavailable options.
Increased the number of windows manged to 160 after recent forum thread.
Added window names so the systray tooltip can be in agreement with any desktop naming module used.
Changed the compact window list menu to use multi-columns to support more than 40+ windows, clicking on titles of non-compact menu displays all content.
1731298 Improved the handling of newly opened owned windows sanitizing any initial desktop assignment
1731312 Simplified VWAssigner to use simple module messages and improved the handling of VW window assignment to respect the 'enable wrapping' setting.
1723458 fixed window list menu not closing.
Fixed Setup changes being applied multiple times.
Changed module enable/disable list saving to be consistently in the Setup process.
Fixed quite a few violations of VW being 'disabled', including the Removal items that should not be available in the systray icon rb menu.
Fixed menu position problem when mouse is at the top of the screen, caused by subtracting 2 off the position.
Forced the assignment of a new foreground window when using the new current window menu to assign the window to another desktop.

Ver 3.1 2007/05/18

805556 - Added screen capture functionality, enabled via module interface.
891589 - Added regex support to most cfg files, now support cn:, cr:, wn: & wr: lines.
909401 - Changed the font used by setup dialog to avoid the problem.
1090375 - Implemented new VW_ENABLE_STATE message.
1221023 Implemented VW_ASSESSWIN message to access a given window, required by WinList.
1314574 - Fixed taskbar order issue caused by sticky windows and dragging a window between desks.
1329448 - Added new current window menu opened via a hotkey or middle mouse button on the title bar
1358979, 1017407 - Combined 'ignore popups' and 'move popups' into a combined 'On hidden window activation' option with a new move to desk option and made ignore really ignore.
1412624 - Added code to properly identify the position of the taskbar - removed redundant 'taskbar warp' & 'XP themed bar' options.
1439471 - Integrated unicode support patch, added new build -u option.
1482377 - Added option to open the window list menu by middle clicking on the desktop and add a compact menu option.
1589763 - Fixed a tricky window .Net & sub-dialog hide problem
1595110, 1468842, 1338957, 942081, 798159 - Implemented mouse desktop edge knocking support and improved window dragging detection.
1644675 - added support for UNC network user paths (i.e. \\\path\)
1659736 - Changed display of disabled modules, now have a ' (disabled)'.
1693125 - Removed crash recovery as the moving of hidden windows caused problems with maximised windows on multiple monitor systems.
1716321 - Fixed Always on top z-order problem and generally improved the z-ordering preservation.
Added an Explore Config button to setup to help people locate their setup files.
Added new dragging on desktop with middle mouse button to change desktop
Changed the default location of the setup dialog to be near the top left of the primary display (i.e. windows default location) as a centralized position is a really bad place to choose for systems with 2 monitors.
Fixed a few double lockMutex issues.
Fixed a hide problem with Word's Find dialog caused by its parent being a hidden window
Fixed long standing winamp issue by changing the window handling criteria
Fixed potential crash and memory leak in window list menu generator
Identified tricky windows created by excel and adobe reader when more than one file is opened and made them owned by the main window to keep the taskbar icons together
Implemented VW_GETWINDESK message to return a given window's desk, required by WinList.
Improve the look of the window list menu.
Improved VW_CHANGEDESK, VW_ASSIGNWIN & VW_SETSTICKY module messages so they can be directly used by a hotkey program.
Increased MAXWIN to 128 and changed the way VW handles too many windows, ignores extra windows rather than disabling.
Made event logging part of the normal build, enabled via an Expert setup option.
Several improvements to WinList, including getting a windows desk #, multiple undo, and new Refresh & Save button

Ver 3.0 2006/09/16

Implemented support of owned windows (fixes winamp and bug SF939132 etc)
Fixed issues caused by minimized windows with sub windows, fixes SF1457569.
Fixed VirtuaWin lock-up issues caused by hung Tricky windows.
SF874409, maintained list of hung windows and continue to attempt recovery - windows will not be lost (tray icon continues to flash)
Re-implemented crash recovery so that it does not have to write to disk every minute (uses window positioning), removed setup option as it is for free. Better z-order storage so sticky windows are handled better.
Changed the initial start-up process to copy any installation cfg files into the user area so the VW installation can have a 'recommended' setup but the user has access to all cfg files. Fixes SF1178901, SF950115 & SF1210922.
Changed the default location of the user config files to the user's 'Application data/VirtuaWin' (uses SHGetSpecialFolderLocation as its supported on all OSs)
SF1435429, added new userpath.cfg to set the location of the user config directory to support roaming profile.
Implemented support for hidden applications popping up due to some event, fixes SF1017408 & SF1358979. Added new options 'Pop-up raised hidden windows' & 'Move popped-up hidden windows' to control this. Note that some apps (like Opera) must be made Tricky windows to work correctly.
Implemented a Z-order preservation feature, fixes SF1008751 & SF1314574.
Improved the reliability of setting the foreground window (this function failing is the biggest cause of 'odd' behaviour).
Fixed SF1324555, SF1004564 & SF807794, bug in window drag code makes the window appear sticky.
SF1421175, added alternative fallback method in case the application icon cannot be retrieved with GetClassLong
SF1046367, changed setup to allow multiple modifiers.
Added MSVC v6 make files and build scripts for MINGW & cmd.
Found that a mutex was released twice, not sure about the sideffects but could possibly cause a crash when displaying the window list
Bound middle mouse button click and shift click on the taskbar icon to change desktop, also added Next and Previous to the right button context menu.
Added new 'Move window immediately' option to Desktop State Handling.
Added support for "class_name_*" in cfg files (e.g. tricky.cfg) which will match any window with a class name that starts with "class_name_"
Changed Access window menu list to contain all windows, now this could be used as an alternative to Windows Alt+Tab
Changed the Setup Dialog help to open the right page in the help docs.
Improved sdk VW_ASSIGNWIN mesage handling so VW will follow the window being assigned if the desktop number is less than zero (i.e. if desk given is -2 the window is moved to desk 2 and VW changes to desk 2)
Added a sdk interface to get VirtuaWin's installation & user's config directory.

Ver 2.11 2005/10/13

Better multi-user support. Store config files in home directory
Removed the need for registry entry
SF1205908, periodic check that moved application doesn't reappear in the taskbar
Updated mousekeys functionality to require a motion tendency towards the edge of the screen to prevent the desktop from swapping unintentionally just because the mouse is near the end of the screen when the meta key is pressed
Fixed grammar error when recovering windows. It now properly says "# windows were recovered" or "1 window was recovered"
Fixed a bug that was causing the right edge or bottom edge of the screen to be detected incorrectly when the secondary monitor was to the left of or above the primary monitor
Added SF fix 1296291 for alt+tab listing issue
Added patch 1295748, toggle sticky function was incorrectly implemented
Added patch 1295745, this removes some duplicated code which is always nice
Removed popup alert message when configuring only one desktop
Made the setup dialog center itself on the primary monitor so that it worked on dual monitor systems. Prior to this change it was centering itself on the centerline between the two monitors if the secondary monitor was to the left or under the primary monitor, and half way off of the edge of the displays if the secondary monitor was to the right or above the primary monitor

Ver 2.10 2005/02/16

Changed compiler to gcc, maybe fixes some reported crashes?
SF904069 Added possibility to choose if sticky should be permanent for all instances of the same classname.
SF905625, Added module message for changing the sticky state of a window
SF936865, use virtual sceensize for mouse switching instead since multimonitor setups would switch desktop prematurely otherwise.
SF1053738, added application icons to the window list

Ver 2.9 2004/01/10

SF770859, Window menu heading will not be displayed if only one meny is used
Bugfix: When assigning a visible window to current desktop (by module message) the window was lost.
Bugfix: Some windows refused to be moved, such as MSN and AIM.

Ver 2.8 2003/07/10

Added possibility to disable the use of one config file for each user
Added module support for assigning a window to specified desktop
Changed the mouse control checkboxes to radiobuttons.
Bugfix: (SF745820)Excluded some special types of windows from beeing handled by VirtuaWin.
Bugfix: Updated the webaddress link
Bugfix: (SF693876)Fixed option to handle XP skinned style taskbars

Ver 2.7.1 2003/04/11

Bugfix: Accidently placed another option over the "switch minimized" option in the setup.

Ver 2.7 2003/04/09

Double click on the icon will bring up setup, and select "disable" instead for disabling.
Added config options to disable taskbar detection and the alternative hiding technique.
Bugfix: All windows was shown in the window menu if only one menu was used
Bugfix: Added retries to add the systray icon incase VirtuaWin starts up before the sytray process.
Added a new setup tab, "expert" and moved some settings from misc.
Bugfix: Old taskbar position was not deleted if taskbar position moved during operation. Also improved left/right/up/down taskbar position detection
Bugfix: The "tricky" windows was not moved away far enough from the screen so you could see a small grey bar at the screen bottom.
Bugfix: Changed the wait time for module startup timeout to 10 secs instead of 5 to avoid module errors during startup.

Ver 2.6.2 2002/10/01

Bugfix: Fixed a memory leak
Bugfix: Added mutex protection for the window list to increase robustness
Bugfix: Fixed so that the recovery file is written with correct endlines

Ver 2.6.1 2002/07/17

Bugfix: Removed the MF_POPUP flag from the window menus since they shouldn't be created like this. Fixed by Ulf Jaenicke-Roesler.
Bugfix: Improved the window menus so that unnecessary menus and items won't show and they all have a label. Fixes by Ulf Jaencke-Roessler.
Bugfix: Now we try to locate the MSTaskSwWClass even if it is a direct child of Shell_TrayWnd, this will make it work on more windows version and hopefully get rid of the startup error some users have experienced.
Fixed so that window coordinates are reloaded when resolution is changed, and also so that taskbar location is reloaded if moved.

Ver 2.6 2002/06/02

Bugfix: Alternative way of hiding windows. This solves the disappearing Explorer bug
Bugfix: Saving of sticky state for "User windows" is now fixed
Bugfix: Problems with saving desktop and stickiness state of applications containing spaces in their classnames
Now the "Access menu key" works with all three menu types. Thanks to Christian Storm
Improved Window menu, no need to step through submenus. Thanks to Christian Storm
Sticky-toggle now works in combination with the win-key. Thanks to Christian Storm
Taskbar warp now works for all locations of the taskbar. Thanks to Philip Walford
Double click in the module list will bring up module config window (if any)
Option to hide the system tray icon
Trying to start-up a second VirtuaWin instance will bring up setup window
Classname will now always be "VirtuaWinMainClass" and not version dependent

Ver 2.5 2001/02/10

Bugfix: Too many modules would corrupt data and cause undefined behavior, also increased the maximum number of modules handled from 5 to 10
Bugfix: Fixed a bug with the username lookup for config file, could go wrong sometimes
Bugfix: Fixed so that config update notification is sent upon apply and only when something has changed upon hitting ok
Bugfix: Fixed the sticky symbol in the winlist again, got lost during some changes
Bugfix: Fixed bug with needing to have hot keys enabled for menu keys to work and also better error message
The WinList module now has classname for all applications
Config file will also be written upon every apply and not if cancel is selected
Added module message for getting the current desktop number
Modules will now get a notification when desktop layout has changed since we might have a new current desktop number after a change
The question mark in the setup dialog is removed since it is no functionality for it

Ver 2.4 2000/08/19

Bugfix: Added the code again that removes closed windows, this will avoid having closed child windows reappearing again. This fix have the dissadvantage of beeing able to remove valid windows when under heavy load, see next item for more info on a workaround
Added a module, WinList, in the installation package. This module has a list of all windows on the system and can restore any of them if VirtuaWin should loose them
Modifications by Matti Jagula <matti@proekspert.ee> List of modifications follows: Added window title sorting in popup menus (Assign, Direct, Sticky) Added some controls to Setup Misc tab and support for calling the popup menus from keyboard
Modifications by Alasdair McCaig. Added multiple user setup support. There will now be one config file for each user

Ver 2.3 2000/06/08

The system tray icon will be reinstalled if Windows shell is restarted (only with IE4.0 or higher)
The "switch minimized" option is checked by default (too many questions about why not minimized windows where moved)
Top sticky window will become active if no other active candidate when moving to another desktop
Bugfix: VirtuaWin could loose windows under heavy load. This should have been fixed now
Bugfix: Windows can not be assigned to an unavailable desktop (when using desktop assignment)

Ver 2.2.1 2000/03/21

Bugfix: Mouse support did not work on win98

Ver 2.2 2000/03/19

Added two hotkeys for cycling desktop-number up and down.
Removed the mousedll. Mouse handling works a little bit different now. This has solved several problems and the only real drawback is that it is not possible to have 0 mouse delay anymore, current minimum is 50. Most fixes below come from this mouse change.
Mouse functionality is totaly disabled when not used. This means that it consumes no CPU time for users that disables mouse support.
Possible to set mouse delay in 50ms precision.
Bugfix: Not possible to switch away screensaver locks anymore.
Bugfix: No unistall problem due to mousedll.dll
Bugfix: When switching desk with mouse sometimes caused several undesired switches.
Bugfix: ':' is used as comment character in userlist.cfg instead since some classnames started with '#'.
Bugfix: Changed display order so that window order should not be moved in the taskbar
Bugfix: No switching to the same desktop, this will take away any flicker if hotkey to current desk is pressed.
Bugfix: No warning message if desktopsize isn't really changed in number of desktops.
Bugfix: Minor change with hotkey routine, might fix some strange hotkey problems.

Ver 2.1.1 2000/02/23

Bugfix: The window menus "access" and "assign" did not show if used alone. This only seemed to happen on NT4, not on win9x and 2000. Fixed by Klaus Gassner.

Ver 2.1 2000/02/16

VirtuaWin can now remember desktop belongings upon restart!
Possible to have any combination of window menu functionality, not just one as before
Button for saving sticky configuration, not just upon exit
Some GUI changes under the misc. setup tab.
VirtuaWin will timeout if an application has crashed. The system tray icon will flash five times if an application is not responding when changing desktop and the application will be ignored.
Source code is more organized for easier handling and binary is linked without debugging symbols, making it almost half the size
Bugfix: Module enable/disable did not work properly with several modules
Bugfix: Save sticky on exit did not work if VirtuaWin was shutdown by Windows shutdown/restart.
Bugfix: Disabled modules were not saved if VirtuaWin was shutdown by Windows shutdown/restart.
Bugfix: Documentation correction regarding MOD_CHANGEDESK w/lParam in Messages.h
Bugfix: VirtuaWin tried to switch an invalid window upon every desktop change, this fix will probably save a clock cycle or two :)

Ver 2.0 2000/01/04

Open source! Distributed under GPL
Possible to disable modules runtime
Option to use the window list for assigning a window to a desktop
Option to use the window list for accessing an application on another desktop
Setup will create an icon in the startup folder

Ver 1.9.1 1999/11/22

Bugfix: There was a mix-up with hot keys 2 and 5 (WIN key)

Ver 1.9 1999/11/20

Change of compiler, now uses Lcc-Win32
Module support added
More customizable hotkeys
Possible to cycle through desktops in a circular way
Added a crash recovery feature
Some internal code cleanups and minor fixes
Clickable links in about box
Removed "mouse win key" option since it didn't work well
Removed some "dimming" features in the setup dialog to decrease code size
Added a "reverse up/down" option. Useful when using num pad hotkeys
Some default choices are set upon first startup
Keys are only registered on ok (not on apply) in setup dialog
Bugfix: Z-order of windows is not messed with anymore
Bugfix: Minimized windows is also affected by sticky option
Bugfix: Fixed strange behaviour when dragging a window to new desktop with "keep last active" enabled (Hmm, didn't I fix this in 1.3?)

Ver 1.8 1999/09/29

Added a hot key option for sticky toggle
Added option to turn of the moving of mouse pointer after a switch
Possible to set 0 delay for mouse switch
Added refresh option, for refreshing desktop after switch (for example Photoshop problems)
Added option for saving sticky configuration upon exit
Desktop number added in the window list
Bugfix: Only possible to open one setup dialog
Bugfix: Possible memory bug concerning user window functionality
Bugfix: Fixed recourse leak concerning the popup menus

Ver 1.7.2 1999/08/09

Bugfix: Mouse key control setup was lost during restarts

Ver 1.7.1 1999/08/06

Bugfix: Some mouse options didn't save if ok was pressed

Ver 1.7 1999/07/15

Moved popups slightly to make it possible (easier) to double-click on icon.
Better look on the setup dialog.
More desktops, up to 9 with different layouts and with new icons.
Hot keys for accessing a desktop directly.
Possible to select a key modifier for changing desktop with mouse.

Ver 1.6 1999/05/25

User can add windows that normally refuses to switch desktop to a configfile to make it switch.
Install and uninstall support.
Setup dialog will appear in the center of screen.
Bugfix: No more flashing in taskbar when changing desktop, thanks to tip from George Algozzini.

Ver 1.5 1999/05/03

Added sticky window functionality
Toolbars should also switch now
Bugfix: Some windows wouldn't get on top if keep active were enabled
Bugfix: No switch if mouse clicks to long on taskbar

Ver 1.4 1999/04/26

Child windows will also switch desktop now
New option to make it possible to drag a window to new desktop over the taskbar
Configurable icons
Internal cleanup and optimizations
Checks if mouse buttons are switched, makes it possible to drag windows to a new desktop with switched mouse buttons

Ver 1.3 1999/04/13

Solved a bug when dragging windows to new desktop and keeping active
Solved a bug with the mouse warp length between upper and lower desktops
Added help, very brief, but still a help file...

Ver 1.2beta 1999/04/12

Possible to drag windows to new desktop with mouse
Configurable if minimized windows will switch
Key setup was lost when cancel pressed in setup
Mouse delay changes went active if cancel was pressed

Ver 1.1beta 1999/04/10

New behavior, windows isn't moved they are hidden instead!
Configurable mouse jump length
Only one instance can be started
When using "release focus" the focus goes to desktop instead of systray
The mouse delay shows continuously when slider moves

Ver 0.7 1999/03/27

Configure possibilities for mouse, keys and focus added
Some minor internal fixes

Ver 0.5 1999/03/19

First public version, no configure possibilities

VirtuaWin

Revision History