Saving and restoring application window state

Question

I have a lot of session state when programming - shell windows, ides, virtual machines, web browsers. This is all lost when the session ends i.e. when logging out or rebooting.

Is there a way to save the desktop state on MS Windows XP and have it restored later? Ideally the solution would allow multiple sessions to be saved and allow any one to be restored.

I'm not asking for the application state to be preserved (although that would be nice) - just the fact the application is running and where its windows are. This is trivial in most X-Windows system, but I can't find a way to do it on MS Windows.

Answer 1

The simple way would be to hibernate instead of logging off/shutting down windows. This saves the whole Windows session onto disk and you can continue working once you turn on the machine once again.

You could also use remote desktop, it has a multisession support and can save those sessions in memory (but they get lost if the machine is rebooted).

I'm not aware there are any other options provided by Windows themselves - maybe there's 3rd party software that provides this.

Answer 2

Take a look at Virtual Desktop Manager from Microsoft.

It manages up to four different desktops and if the computer is hibernated all the information is preserved.

You can find it here.

Answer 3

There's an app that does exactly that - twinsplay. It can save and load multiple window sessions.

It also gives you "split screen" capabilities.