Game minimizes when you click your second monitor? How to fix it

It is not your PC. It is how exclusive fullscreen works on Windows: only one program can own a display that way, so clicking anything on another screen minimizes the game. The fix is to run the game as a borderless window that fills the screen instead.

How to stop a game minimizing when you click another monitor

Set the game to windowed mode in its own video settings, once. Then turn on Second Screen Gaming's Run borderless on a chosen screen: it strips the window frame and fits the game to the monitor you pick, filling the whole screen the way fullscreen did. A borderless window stays where it is when you click elsewhere.

The game keeps rendering at the resolution set in its own settings, and the picture is stretched to fill the screen, so set that resolution to match the monitor for the sharpest image.

The tray agent keeps the fit in place. If the game recreates its window or puts its frame back, it is fitted again, and the next time the game starts it lands on the same screen. Nothing is injected into the game, so this fix stays available for games with anti-cheat. Turning it off gives the window back its frame and position.

A game in exclusive fullscreen cannot be reshaped from outside, which is why windowed mode comes first. Games from the Xbox app run inside a host window that does not take the change.

Coming soon on Steam

Why fullscreen games minimize on a second monitor

In exclusive fullscreen, a game takes over the display and runs it at its own resolution and refresh rate. Only one program can own a display that way, so the moment you click a window on another monitor, Windows hands the display back to the desktop and the game minimizes to get out of the way.

Games built on SDL, a library many games use for their window, minimize on focus loss unless they are told not to, which the last step below does.

How to stop the minimizing by hand

These work for many games. Plenty have no borderless mode, though, windowed mode keeps a title bar and a frame around the picture, and a window you dragged into place opens on the main screen again next launch.

1. Switch the game to borderless windowed in its video settings. It may be called "Fullscreen windowed", "Windowed fullscreen" or "Borderless".
2. No borderless option? Try Alt+Enter, which switches many games between fullscreen and windowed.
3. Run it windowed at your screen's resolution, then drag it into place.
4. For games built on SDL, add a user environment variable named SDL_VIDEO_MINIMIZE_ON_FOCUS_LOSS with the value 0, then restart Steam so the games it launches pick it up.

Common questions

Is borderless windowed slower than fullscreen?

For most DirectX 11 and 12 games on Windows 10 and 11 the difference is small, because Windows presents a borderless game that fills the screen almost the way it presents exclusive fullscreen. Some older games run a little slower in a window.

Does the borderless fit work with anti-cheat games?

Yes. It only moves and resizes the game's window, the way Windows itself does, and loads nothing into the game.