WinSplit Revolution Review

There's research on the productivity bonus of multiple monitors (estimated at 44%), but if you have a larger or wide-screen monitor, there are ways to leverage your screen real estate. Just dragging windows around can create a way to compare different information screens and more, but this process is tedious.

There's been a screen-sorting method in Windows for a long time where the user can right-click the taskbar and select "Tile Windows Vertically / Horizontally" (as below). However, windows never quite fit and always seem to overlap just a little bit. Resizing the windows in any format seems to constantly cause problems and right-clicking repeatedly becomes painful.

Window "pockets"

However, there's a better and much faster method to do this with windows that snap into predefined places. The excellent WinSplit does just that. Although there's supposed to be an interface system that does just that to be built into Windows 7, you can do it now with Windows XP and Vista.

You can move windows into different regions (left half, right half, lower quarter, upper quarter) while holding ctrl+alt and it will pop into place. If you scroll your mouse wheel during this process, it will rotate through several different available options. The smooth warmth of a clean window-snap isn't there yet but its more than good enough.

Problems

The only negative for this program is that most of the hotkey items require the number pad on standard keyboards, expecting that laptop users wouldn't be interested. However, many laptops have larger or wide-screens that can also use software like this (especially the note + window look below). Fortunately the ctrl+alt system described above is more than adequate and may be all you use anyway.

Another more minor concern for some users will be that, although there is a portable option during install, this program has not been accepted as truly portable by the PortableFreeware collection. See the forum on this topic.

• Download

Version: 9.02
Size: 4 megs
RAM Usage: 5.3 megs
License: Freeware
Score: 9 out of 10 - One of the reasons portable software exists and is so important. The minor flaws with key combinations don't prevent this from being absolutely essential.
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Waiting on acceptance to the portablefreeware collection.

Related:

• A somewhat rough video describing the program.
• Lifehacker and FreewareGenius have also reviewed this software.
• Another similar tool.
• Mac equivalents exist but either way behind or non-free.