Session restore should work with virtual desktops

[pneenkoalabear]

Right now, if you have windows spread out across multiple virtual desktops and update (or apply a flag or something) it relaunches them on only one desktop. This is very messy and makes updating a nightmare. Microsoft has control over both Windows 10 and Edge so I think this issue can actually be resolved. 

[#2]

@pneenkoalabear Hmmm, interesting. A couple questions for you:

1. Can you give us more detail about what exactly you're looking to see?
2. Are you an enterprise or general audience user for the browser?
3. Could you elaborate more on the scenarios (which updates and flags) that caused this behavior?

Thanks!

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

[#3]

1. not sure how to answer this. I think I explained it thoroughly in my post but I'll provide instructions on how to repro below
2. I'm a general audience user.
3. It's not a specific flag or update that causes this behaviour. It's just something that happens anytime the browser is restarted and you do a session restore.

It's super easy to reproduce.

Step 1: Open Edge (or another Chromium based browser). Navigate to a page.

Step 2: Open a new window and navigate to another page.

Step 3: Open another window and another page.

Step 4: Go to the Windows 10 task view and drag each window to the "New desktop" button. Leave one window on your current desktop.

Step 5: Go back to that window and open a new tab and type in chrome://restart (it'll redirect to edge://restart) and then it'll automatically restore your session but open all 3 windows in the same virtual desktop.

[#4]

I know how to answer 1 now. I hope that this can be fixed by relaunching windows on the same virtual desktop that they were in before Edge is restarted.

My issues with this remind me of Office 365 and how opening a Word (for example) window when another Word window was already open in another virtual desktop would switch to that virtual desktop and open it there. This doesn't happen anymore thankfully and upon a quick search, that issue started in 2015 (i refuse to believe that was five years ago). ngl, I still really miss the old task view from 1709. It's been a while and yet the performance and reliability of the rewritten one isn't on par with the old one although the rewritten touch keyboard did improve. Nowadays, it feels like Windows 10 is in some state where it just gets security patches and nothing else.

oops got super sidetracked there. were you or anyone else over there able to reproduce this? :)

[#5]

@pneenkoalabear Thanks for the responses. Yes, I was actually able to repro it, so I will be passing this along for review. And if you haven't yet, it would also be helpful if you can submit a report!

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

[#6]

What did your co-workers think of this?

[#7]

@pneenkoalabear I will check-in with them and let you know if they have any updates to share.

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

[#8]

@pneenkoalabear I've confirmed that it is on their radar! It sounds like they are focusing on addressing some urgent product needs for the near future, but they have taken note of this.

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention!

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

[#9]

cool. hope y'all have a nice weekend

[#10]

on your radar huh...

well anyway, here's a link to the chromium bug: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=873414
lol issues with Windows 10's MoveWindowToDesktop. davonne-rogers-pretends-to-be-shocked.gif

i swear i made this same comment before. crazy deja vu.

[#11]

Yo Fawkes. Google did it again. They fixed it before you guys even saw it. The fix should be trickling down the releases soon. That'll unfortunately take months.

Edit: it looks like you deleted your account? i guess it's hard to be fake which working at ms requires. 

[#12]

Doesn't matter if he is enterprise or general audience. This functionality has been working JUST FINE in Firefox for 7 years. It is astounding that Microsoft has not tested this use case with their own software.

The usefulness of this is extremely obvious. Nobody wants to have to sort their windows back into the appropriate virtual desktop after rebooting.

Virtual desktops are intended to DIVIDE activity into separate categories, roles, or workflows. Nobody wants all of their work browser windows suddenly collapsing into their non-work virtual desktop just because they had to reboot to update Windows.

My Virtual desktops are Main, Flutter, Business, Drop Shipping, and Misc. When I log in to my machine and open up Edge, all those tabs and windows I opened in other Virtual Desktops better still be on those desktops. It only takes 1 extra logic step to implement this feature.

and yet ..... ..... It is 3 years later and nobody has implemented this extremely obvious feature.