Minecraft: Here Is How To Put Windowed Mode

Playing Minecraft often leads people to multitask since projecting often requires quite a bit of research, whether you’re trying to create intricate redstone contraptions using commands, make fun mini-games, or build something epic. Switching between applications while in fullscreen mode can easily lead to poor productivity, so playing the game in windowed mode is something that most would benefit from greatly. How do you put Minecraft in windowed mode, though?

Windowed VS fullscreen mode

Although, at first, it might seem as if there are no differences between windowed and fullscreen mode in Minecraft apart from what already makes them different, you might benefit from playing Minecraft in either, depending on your situation.

For example, players will likely have higher FPS playing in fullscreen mode. The main reason is that your PC only has to render what’s going on in the game, whereas when running the game in windowed mode, it has to render your desktop and any other applications you might be running in the background.

You can test if that’s the case by going to the F3 menu(debug screen) while in fullscreen mode, looking at the FPS in the upper left corner, and doing the same while in windowed mode.

Force running Minecraft in windowed mode.

There are several ways to run Minecraft in windowed mode, but what if you wanted to make running the game in windowed mode the standard and not the exception? The game will let you do this with ease.

All you need to do is go to Minecraft and head to settings by pressing ESC. The options menu will pop up, and you’ll want to go to settings and video settings. While there, click on other and locate the fullscreen option. You’ll want to click on it to run Minecraft in windowed mode. Now, whenever you exit Minecraft and return, the game will run in windowed mode as standard.

This is by far the easiest and fastest method to ensure Minecraft is always launched in windowed mode, but there are situations where you might not have access to it, and you’ll want to use launch parameters to run Minecraft in windowed mode.

Changing launch parameters

The reason why someone might want to change launch parameters is plentiful. Still, the most common reason for choosing the harder route is that you’re playing on a server where the server owner has restricted access to some video settings.

Another reason you might not have access to these settings is if you’re running some mod that doesn’t give you access to the interface. So, follow these steps if you want to change the launch parameters to force run Minecraft in windowed mode:

1. Open your Minecraft Launcher and find the profile you use to play Minecraft
2. Next, you’ll want to click on Edit Profile
3. In the settings, locate JVM Arguments and click on them.
4. Here, you might already find some pre-existing launch arguments. Make sure you don’t remove any if some are present.
5. Go to the empty space and paste the following launch argument: -Dorg.lwjgl.opengl.Window.undecorated=false
6. This is a parameter that will force Minecraft to run in windowed mode.

Running Minecraft in windowed mode borderless

If you’d prefer to run Minecraft in windowed mode for some reason, there’s also a way to do that without the borders. Someone might want to do that because they want the experience of full-screen mode but with the added benefit of multitasking if, for example, you have several monitors or you want to be able to ALT+ tab between programs faster.

Unfortunately, running the game in windowed mode borderless is not built into the game, so you’ll have to download third-party tools to help you achieve this.

One great application that lets you run any game in windowed mode borderless is the Borderless Gaming tool. The tool’s last update release was in 2019, but you shouldn’t have any problems running the tool smoothly with all your games.

Using the tool is simple. You’ll run the game and set it to windowed mode. Then, you’ll open the tool to see the list of programs you’re running. Locate Minecraft, click on it, and then click on the fullscreen button. The game should then run in windowed mode borderless.

Benefiting from windowed mode

Even though I already covered some of the benefits of playing in windowed mode, let’s see what other benefits playing in windowed mode provides.

Larger field of vision

For some reason, running Minecraft in windowed mode offers players a bigger field of vision. If you pair it with windowed mode borderless, you gain a slight advantage over other players. It’s not a hugely noticeable difference, but you can see for yourself just how much more you can see by running the game in windowed mode in the picture below.

Streamer benefits

If you stream Minecraft gameplay using screen capturing software, playing the game in window mode can help you stream Minecraft only. Streamers often stream a game in full-screen mode and accidentally give out valuable information on their computer because the software captures the entire screen, not just one specific application.

Multitasking

You’ll often find yourself multitasking when playing Minecraft. Whether it is because you’re trying to look at a reference photo to build a replica of something in-game or you’re copy-pasting commands non-stop, having multiple applications running in the background is a common occurrence. Playing in windowed mode eliminates the need for ALT+tabing constantly.

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