Windowed Mode

What Does Windowed Mode Mean?

A windowed mode for a software application is a mode in which the program appears in a smaller window rather than on the device’s full screen. This display mode is a typical part of many applications made for Microsoft Windows and other similar OS designs.

Advertisements

Techopedia Explains Windowed Mode

There are many different ways to make a program operate in windowed mode. For example, in Microsoft Visual Basic and similar languages, a developer can use a resource called DirectX, a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs), to implement a windowed mode for an application. There are also many different kinds of programs, including games and virtualized applications, that can benefit from running in a windowed mode. The main benefit is usually the end user’s ability to monitor multiple programs on a screen at once.

Some problems related to a windowed mode revolve around graphical displays. For developers who want to create a windowed mode for a program, understanding its effects on rendered graphics within the window is ultimately important. In addition to a loss of graphic quality, some programs can have issues with accessing memory to render the graphics correctly. All of this contributes to a common dialog between developers about how best to implement a windowed mode in various scenarios.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Latest DevOps Terms

Related Reading

Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…