Virtual desktops have been around for decades, and I'm sure I never threw out my copy of Xerox Rooms. However, they have never been popular with Windows users, in spite of Microsoft providing a free one as a PowerToy. It suggests there isn't a large market for the idea of having different desktops for different purposes and switching between them.....
However, if you fancy the idea, have a look at Desktops v1.0 by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. It's only 62K. It's an MSDN developer tool, but anybody can download it.
Desktops provides access to four virtual desktops, where No 1 is the one you already have. You can switch to the others via keystrokes or using a popup from the SysTray next to the clock, as shown here....
Russinovich and Cogswell are best known for producing great little utilities at SysInternals, including Process Explorer and Autoruns. You can download more than 60 as a bundle from Microsoft TechNet.
