Feature request: Get desktop name

[Szeraax]

Win the latest builds from the Windows Insider slow ring, you can new NAME your virtual desktops. Please add the capability for /GetCurrentDesktop or /GetDesktop to return a name instead of an index or something.

Also, I wonder if you can switch to a desktop by name.

[Szeraax]

Went and downloaded the 10.0.19041.0 (Build 19041) Windows 10 SDK and searched through it for some references to desktop or names. Didn't find anything. If anyone ever is curious what I was searching specifically:

Search "372E1D3B-38D3-42E4-A15B-8AB2B178F513" (0 hits in 0 files)
Search "A5CD92FF-29BE-454C-8D04-D82879FB3F1B" (2 hits in 2 files)
Search "B5A399E7-1C87-46B8-88E9-FC5747B171BD" (0 hits in 0 files)
Search "C2F03A33-21F5-47FA-B4BB-156362A2F239" (0 hits in 0 files)
Search "C5E0CDCA-7B6E-41B2-9FC4-D93975CC467B" (0 hits in 0 files)
Search "DesktopManager" (99 hits in 11 files)
Search "GetAdjacentDesktop" (0 hits in 0 files)
Search "GetCompatibilityPolicyType" (0 hits in 0 files)
Search "GetDesktop" (429 hits in 159 files)
Search "GetDesktops" (12 hits in 6 files)
Search "GetVirtualDesktopId" (0 hits in 0 files)
Search "IApplicationView" (2674 hits in 39 files)
Search "IVirtualDesktop" (53 hits in 7 files)
Search "IVirtualDesktopManagerInternal" (0 hits in 0 files)

Most relevant hits were in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0.19041.0\um folder around ShlObj, ShObjIdl_core, etc. files.

Hope that helps someone one day.

[MScholtes]

Due to sad personal reasons I will not be able to deal with this topic during the next weeks. I will then give another answer.

[Szeraax]

Sorry to hear that. No rush. I tried to find if such capability exists in the SDK and couldn't find anything, so I turn it over to you :) Thanks for the great tool.

[lutz]

@Szeraax

@MScholtes Great work i use your single code file of virtual desktop api for my private project and you can update your code to get the name of virtual desktop

Add public Guid Guid => ivd.GetId():

public class Desktop
{
    private IVirtualDesktop ivd;

   // New property
    public Guid Guid => ivd.GetId();
}

And with the Guid you can look into the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VirtualDesktops\Desktops

This registry key hast subkeys in format {[GUID OF ivd]} and every key has an value called "Name". This is an string object you will finde the correct name.

[Szeraax]

@lutz , this is great work! Though, I will note that the Guid will ONLY appear in the registry IF you rename the desktop. If it has its default of <Desktop #>, then there is no entry in the registry.

[lutz]

Yes that is true but the default handling can you implement by yourself.

[Szeraax]

Yes, absolutely. Just wanted it to be clear that desktops don't necessarily appear in that reg key.

[MScholtes]

Hello Lutz, this is a great finding. Hello Szeraxx, thank you for pointing out the source of a possible failure.

I still have no test machine to date. Is it possible to set the name for a virtual desktop this way too? Maybe with restarting the Explorer shell (or logging off an on)?

Greetings

Markus

[Szeraax]

To test, I deleted the name property from a desktop and restarted explorer.exe, the desktop's name in windows was just Desktop 3 as the third desktop. yay! I wonder if there is a smaller change that you can use to set desktop name. Restart explorer.exe doesn't seem TOO bad though.

[Szeraax]

Aight, I tried my hand at this, but since I don't know C#, I am failing miserably. Someone else may be able to look and quickly see what I'm missing.

https://github.com/MScholtes/VirtualDesktop/pull/18

If I hardcode the registry path to a Guid that exists on my local system, then it does pull the name property like you'd expect, so I at least know that that part works.

[Szeraax]

I've successfully made this work and submitted a PR to share it for others. Closing request.