Black Screen when alt-tab or exiting fullscreen games in Windows 10

You can fix this by running the game in full-screen windowed mode, instead of running it in full-screen. The difference here is that you might lose out a tiny bit on high graphic games. When a game runs in full screen, it occupies the whole of grapic card power, leaving none to the Host OS, While in full screen windowed mode, the game loses out a bit on the "exclusive mode" & graphical interface.

Starting a Full Screen Windowed game

  1. Download Fullscreenizer from here

  2. Extract and run fullscreenizer.

  3. Run your game in a window. If your game runs in a regular window or you can run it in a window, go to Step 4. If your game runs in fullscreen mode, try going to the game settings and then try changing the window type to windowed mode. If it is not possible to do this, then try CTRL+ALT+DEL and open task manager. This should minimize the game. In the fullscreenizer, click refresh, click on your game and click on fullscreenize. Note that this is not likely to work. Try the other solution given if this doesn't work.

  4. In the fullscreenizer, click refresh, click on your game and click on fullscreenize.

Another solution is not to fix the alt + tab, but instead to use a different solution:

Using Windows 10

Doing this on windows 10 is easier than on windows 7/8/XP, since windows 10 has this feature built in. First you must create a new desktop.

  1. Create a new desktop. You can do this using the CTRL+WIN+D or you can also click the three-window icon on the desktop and then click new desktop (see picture)

New desktop and Three-window icon

  1. Make Sure You can switch between desktops. Press Ctrl, WIN & an arrow key to switch desktops. E.G. CTRL+WIN+LEFT or CTRL+WIN+RIGHT.

  2. Running Your Application NOTE: You will probably make a new desktop on each startup. Run your game in desktop 1. Press CTRL+WIN+RIGHT to switch to desktop 2.

Using a OS that is XP or above

Since Windows XP/7/8/8.1 don't have this function built in, you will have to use the Microsoft Systernals Desktops program to achieve this. Go to this website and use the given program to create virtual desktops.


For Nvidia: Setting Scaling tab to No Scaling under Adjust Desktop Size and Position in Nvidia Control Panel fixed this behavior for me.

It was set to Aspect Ratio previously