Top 6 Ways to Fix Games Not Opening in Full Screen on Windows 11

Are you surprised that all the games on Windows computer open in in windowed mode? While the close and minimize button are helpful, playing a game in a full screen mode is fun.

Due to misconfigured settings or outdated graphics drivers, you can’t play games in full screen mode on Windows. Whether it’s the game or specific settings on Windows to fix, you can tackle that easily. Unless the game is designed to work in windowed mode, here are the ways to fix games not opening in full screen on Windows.

1. Use the Keyboard Shortcut

Sometimes, the games may open in windowed mode by default and you might have hit the Maximize window shortcut on your computer. You can use the Alt + Enter keyboard shortcut to enable full screen mode for a game that opens in windowed mode.

So, next time you launch a game and press the Alt + Enter to switch to its full screen mode.

2. Change In-Game Settings

Most modern games allow you to customize their display settings and configure them to launch in fullscreen mode. You can access the display settings of your game and ensure that it is set to launch in fullscreen mode. Here’s how to do that:

Step 1: Launch a game and open it’s settings.

Step 2: Switch to the Graphics settings. Every game may have a different structure or labelling system where it may be referred as Graphics or Video.

Step 3: Choose Fullscreen for the Display Mode settings.

Then, save the changes and restart your game. Check if the game launches in the full screen mode. If not, try the next solution on the list.

3. Turn Off Full Screen Optimization

Another quick solution you can try if games are not opening in full screen on Windows is to disable full screen optimization. The intention of this feature is to ensure that the games run in a full screen mode without issues. But it can cause different display issues and not run the game properly.

You can disable full screen optimization for the particular game to check if it makes any difference. Follow these steps to do that:

Step 1: Right-click on your game’s shortcut and choose Properties from the context menu.

Step 2: Click the Compatibility tab.

Step 3: Uncheck the ‘Disable fullscreen optimization’ box.

Step 4: Click Apply and then OK to save the changes.

Next, restart your computer and relaunch the game to check if it opens in full screen mode.

4. Use Windows Compatibility Mode

You can use the Windows compatibility mode feature if you want to play some of the older or classic games on your Windows 11 PC. This feature creates an environment that emulates an older operating system, enabling the game to run on your computer. You can run your game in compatibility mode by following the below instructions:

Step 1: Right-click on your game’s shortcut and choose Properties from the menu that crops up.

Step 2: Switch to the Compatibility tab.

Step 3: Check the ‘Run this program in compatibility mode for’ box. Then, choose Windows 8 from the drop-down menu.

Step 4: Click Apply and then OK to save the changes.

5. Change Windows Settings

Windows allows you to manually adjust the display scale according to your monitor. However, certain games may encounter issues entering full screen mode if the display scale is set to a higher number than the recommended value for the game.

In such cases, the solution is to adjust the display scale value to the recommended number that the game supports. You can do that by following the below steps:

Step 1: Press Windows + I keyboard shortcut to open the Settings app.

Step 2: Choose System from the left sidebar and click the Display option in the right pane.

Step 3: Select the drop-down icon next to the Scale option and then choose recommended value.

After that, restart your computer and check for the issue.

6. Update the Graphics Driver

If full screen still keeps minimizing or the game fails to enter full screen mode at all, you can try updating the graphics driver. An outdated or corrupt graphics driver can cause scaling or resizing issues on your computer.

So, visit your graphics card manufacturer’s website (NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel) and download available updates for your graphics driver. Alternatively, you can use the Device Manager to download the update. Here’s how:

Step 1: Press the Windows + X keyboard shortcut to open the Power User menu and choose Device Manager from the list.

Step 2: Double-click on the Display adapters.

Step 3: Right-click on your graphics driver and select Update driver.

Step 4: Choose the ‘Search automatically for drivers’ option.

Windows will search for and download the latest available graphics driver. After that, restart your computer, and you will see that you are no longer facing the issue.

Launch Games in Full Screen Mode

Full screen mode in games offers the best experience without distractions. However, games might fail to launch in full screen mode for various reasons. Fortunately, you can stop games from minimizing and enjoy them in full screen mode using the above solutions.