Windows does have virtual desktops...just not the way X allows. The main thing that bugs me about Windows's desktops is that it is given a logical display surface compromised of all the display units. Whereas with X (going by my use of xmonad) it's easy to separate the display and desktop abstractions and have desktop 2 on display 1 and desktop 5 on display 2.

There's a nice overview of the limitations and intentions of the Windows model here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms68...

When on windows, I've been using this (it crashes sometimes, but only itself, never takes other programs with it): https://github.com/Tzbob/python-windows-tiler