Games enter windowed mode by themselves

[soloman02]

The game will enter windowed mode without any user input at random intervals. I can be in the start-up menu not even touching my keyboard/mouse and the game will do this.

This is a very perplexing problem because I cannot find any information on the web.
The worst part is that not all games do this making it harder to diagnose.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 does this.
Company of Heroes Gold does it and Shattered Horizon does it. COD MW2 does not, GTA 4 does not and Saints Row 2 do not.

Stuff running in the background:
Teamspeak 2
Rivatuner
Fraps
Steam (for MW2 and shattered horizon)
Action center

GFX drivers: 196.62
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
3GB of G.Skill DDR2 800
GTX 275 @ 700/1512/1300
Intel E2200 @2.8GHz
Gigabyte DS3L
Onboard Realtek LAN and Audio
500GB WD Blue


This issue did not happen with XP Pro.

I can post a dxdiag but is there an easy way to do it without taking up a ton of space?

Any ideas as to the cause?

 

[heat901]

I always had an issue with Teamspeak and COH...though it would just disconnect me from online games when I was in them...probably a porting issue.

Do you go back to the game, put options back to full screen and then it keeps doing it? Sounds familiar to a situation I had with my AV when I went to win 7. I had AVG, a new version out and they left some kind of pop up or something running on it that would bring me to desktop while playing a game. For some reason they left some code in from the previous version in for a pop to occur when you had the old version. But did a crap job of taking it out and though nothing popped up if you had the new version AVG would still do the processes as if there was a pop up to occur, I just delete AVG and went to avast.

"This issue did not happen with XP Pro."
I am guessing you just installed win 7? Could be a couple of things then that are causing this issue.

 

[Demo24]

I think it's generally something in the background doing something that causes this. As to what it would be for you, can't say. Might want to play around and see if closing things will resolve it.

 

[soloman02]

I do not use TS when playing COH. I also disabled the action center and still had it happen. I have tried playing bad company 2 with TS off and it still happens. I installed Win7 in December. I player MW2 and GTA 4 just fine. I then installed the BFBC2 beta in Feb and that is when this problem appeared. The problem still exists with the full game. I installed COH soon after getting the beta. I also have COD WAW installed. No issues there either.

I also do not run AV when I play games. I make sure to kill the processes before I play a game.

 

[coloumb]

I think it's generally something in the background doing something that causes this. As to what it would be for you, can't say. Might want to play around and see if closing things will resolve it.

This is it. I discovered that a program would run a silent update check in the background - can't recall exactly what it was - but I think it was the virus scanner. It sounds like something from the betas wasn't uninstalled and are trying to check for updates...

 

[Kabob]

Games enter windowed mode by themselves

Umm...why do you think they're called "Games for Windows? :awe:

 

[heat901]

Sounds like trial and error time.

I would say first delete BCBF2 then go to your program files or steam apps or where BCBF2 and/or where the was beta see what is left in there and delete all that junk if you still have files in there.

Try to play COH...if it works then just try reinstalling BCBF2 and maybe the problem went away.

If not try deleting COH and installing BCBF2 and running BCBF2. If that doesnt work....

Even though you do not think its your AV try deleting and running either game with no AV at all...then it might be time for another AV.

If that does not work try rolling back drivers or other updates you might have done since last month.....maybe even fraps... I have heard it can cause issues when running during since games.

Basically its all trial and error....I dont know about you but over the course of a month I could have updated/downloaded/installed a lot of things could conflict or cause a hiccup in my system...sort of like what you got going now.

 

[brandonb]

Steam does this to me when it wants to alert me of an event. I had to turn steam off so it wouldn't start with Windows... Are you running steam at all?

 

[pontifex]

This happens to me when launching call of pripyat. It will start windowed and I can't change it. I exit the game and relaunch and it works fine then. nothing running in the background to make it do this.

When I launched BF BC2 for the 1st time, it loaded in windowed mode but then it went full screen

 

[soloman02]

I only run steam when playing MW2, Saints row 2, tropico 3, and shattered horizon. I also had uninstalled the BFBC2 beta then installed COH and COH did it. Of my steam games, only shattered horizon encounters this problem. I do not run steam in the background when playing non steam games.

How could AV interfere when I manually go through and kill all associated processes? I use Trend Micro BTW. I have found it is less cumbersome than norton/mcafee.

Timeline of games installed:
GTA4
MW2
Tropico 3
BFBC2 beta
Shattered horizon
Saints Row 2
COH Gold
BFBC2 full game

As you can see from the timeline, I installed saints row 2 (which does not encounter this issue) after I encountered this issue with the BFBC2 beta.

Also, I updated to the 196.21 nvidia drivers and had the same problem. I rolled the drivers back to 195.62 because the BFBC2 beta had massive performance issues with 196.21.

I also have windows update disabled and perform updates manually. I have run fraps with all these games. While fraps gives me no issues in GTA4, MW2, Tropico 3, Saints Row 2, I will try it disabled when I next play BFBC2 and COH. I am not at home right now and cannot give more detailed information. Does anyone know if the nvidia drivers are loaded in safe mode? If they are or there is a way to force them to be loaded, I could try to play BFBC2 in safe mode to see if the problem still happens. When I get home Sat night, I'll do some more trial and error.


Also I found this out when I had to activate my server (win7 pro OEM). If you want to install win7 OEM (or MSDNAA versions) on more than one computer call the number M$ provides. You will be greeted with a automated system instead of a live person. Therefore you have to give no BS response as to why you want to activate again. I have my server and my notebook using the same win7 key.

 

[UberNeuman]

Check your firewall programs - even if you allow access with a third party firewall, the windows firewall will sometimes attempt to block access, which will drop programs into windowed mode....

 

[soloman02]

It is not another program causing this. It is a direct X problem (I think). I Forced Bad Company 2 and COH to run in DX9 and the problem went away. This is a temporary solution because I want to run those games in DX10.

 

[Nik]

many programs have a problem with overlays

kill fraps and other overlay-using proggies

 

[MrPickins]

Also I found this out when I had to activate my server (win7 pro OEM). If you want to install win7 OEM (or MSDNAA versions) on more than one computer call the number M$ provides. You will be greeted with a automated system instead of a live person. Therefore you have to give no BS response as to why you want to activate again. I have my server and my notebook using the same win7 key.

Quoted for posterity...

 

[soloman02]

many programs have a problem with overlays

kill fraps and other overlay-using proggies

Heres the thing, I had all the same programs in the tray as before: Fraps and Rivatuner and the game did not go into windowed mode. The only change I made was to force DX9. Also I just noticed this, all the games that do this are DX10/DX11 games. DX9 games do not do this.

 

[heat901]

Heres the thing, I had all the same programs in the tray as before: Fraps and Rivatuner and the game did not go into windowed mode. The only change I made was to force DX9. Also I just noticed this, all the games that do this are DX10/DX11 games. DX9 games do not do this.

One of the programs that you are running in the background could just be conflicting with something in DX10/DX11. I would check and see that your DX is updated and whats is it going to hurt to shut off some programs then try to run the games.

Better question is, its been a week since you started this thread what have you tried to fix the issue you have?

Was the win7 an OEM or a MSDNAA version?... Because the MSDNAA version I can get is only an upgrade from XP to win 7... could be different from school to school but from what I hear there has been issues with the doing upgrades...

 

[heat901]

what version of fraps are you running and when was that last time you updated it?