How to get number of Virtual Desktops

Harshithraj1871 1,581

Im working on a WinUI3 desktop application in cpp. I want to get the total number of Virtual desktops currently available. I didn't find any reference online for this.

Is there any Win32/COM/WinrRT API that returns the total number of Virtual desktops?

Castorix31 86,971 Reputation points

2025-02-03T09:31:53.22+00:00

There is IVirtualDesktopManagerInternal, but it is different depending on OS/releases...

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RLWA32 46,941 Reputation points

2025-02-03T08:19:17.5466667+00:00

Is there any Win32/COM/WinrRT API that returns the total number of Virtual desktops?

Microsoft has never documented any publicly available functions/interfaces for programmatically interrogating/managing virtual desktops. The design philosophy has always been that virtual desktops are a UI feature that should be controlled by the user, not applications. Some have experimented with undocumented interfaces but these have been a moving target through the years. Of course, that's not unusual for undocumented stuff.
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Harshithraj1871 1,581 Reputation points

2025-02-03T09:28:53.24+00:00

Thanks for clarifying. This helps

RLWA32 46,941 Reputation points

2025-02-03T10:18:13.59+00:00

@Harshithraj1871, If you tell us more about the problem you are trying to solve we may be able to make helpful suggestions.

Harshithraj1871 1,581 Reputation points

2025-02-06T08:00:33.2066667+00:00

Actually we are not trying to solve any particular problem right now. We are doing a POC on what are all the information we can get using Win32 API about screens and desktops

RLWA32 46,941 Reputation points

2025-02-06T08:26:22.3933333+00:00

In addition to undocumented COM interfaces you can also get a lot of information about virtual desktops from the registry. As far as I know use of the registry for virtual desktop information storage is also undocumented.
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