It's much easier to keep programs of various sorts grouped in to viewable segments than having to manually minimize and maximize windows as you work, or just leaving a ton of windows open and cycling though them. In one VD you can have your music player open with the library available to navigate and in another VD you can have a full screen web browser open and in yet another you can have your word processor open where you are writing a report for college (or where ever) and that's three VDs in use and organized with no window swapping. each screen can stay just how you like it and no matter how much work and other programs you run on another VD your music player and browser are right where you left them, and uncluttered. With a simple keycombo I can switch between VDs faster than cycling though a bunch of windows to find the one I want because I know what the last active window in each VD should be. Once you pick up on separating your workflows by VDs you will increase productivity because you aren't interfering with one project with the windows of another.
Jon.
That makes a lot of sense, actually. I guess I don't really think about my desktop in terms of workflows. I usually have windows that are relevant to the task at hand, and a few others (music player, for example). Maybe if I did more multitasking, the virtual desktop idea would make more sense to me. This discussion has made me want to give it another go....