Windows 10: Alt tab not minimising some games?

I have a single monitor. I used to be able to alt tab out of a full screen game and it would minimize in the background until I opened it again. As of a couple of days ago about half the games I've tried that used to run full screen fine no longer minimize when I alt tab and seem to be just open in the background so whenever I open the start menu or click on a window the game instantly reappears.

So far it's happening with Binding of Isaac, Golf with your Friends and Undermine via steam, and Gears Tactics and AOE remastered via the game pass app. Doesn't happen with Dark Souls 3, CSGO or Metro 2033 that I've tried so far - can alt tab out of those and they stay minimized until I click on them again fine.

Also when you mouse over the taskbar for the games giving me issues, they still seem to be running in the Peek view? Whereas I mouse over DS3 while minimized and it's just black.

Hopefully someone knows what I'm talking about? All the google results are people with 2 monitors not wanting this to happen. I am aware windowed mode exists but it's extremely awkward for Gears for example and considering it wasn't doing this last week I would love to get back to that point. Thanks.

AMD Ryzen 5 2600, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, Windows 10



found this when searching which seems to be the exact same issue:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-windows/96a5181c-0a7e-48ce-9fa1-0fa2b513f5ca

Have followed all the steps given in the top answer, kinda worrying that the only thing that fixed that guy's problem was a full reset considering I don't even know how I caused it in the first place

:)

 

alt tabbing increases system performance?

indeed i have seen this phenomenon with a lot of intel CPUs! i used to think alt tabbing back to the games gives all other programs less priority, and minimises those programs, and hence the performance increases.

 

Weird alt-tab out of fullscreen games.

Hi Simon,

The multitasking capability of a game depends on the total memory of your computer. If you have large amounts of RAM on your computer, it can multitask heavy programs easily like high-end games. To ensure that we can provide the appropriate resolution
for your concerns with the alt-tab function, we’d like to ask you a few questions:

• What were the recent changes made on your computer before you experienced this issue?
• When did the issue start?

• Have you pressed the alt-tab key during you play Rainbow Six Siege? Or it just happen without pressing it?
  
• Does the automatic ALT-TAB behavior happens on other games?
• Do you have any other programs running on your computer while playing?
• What is the anti-virus program you're using?

• What is your device or system specifications? To know, follow these steps:
  1. Press Windows + S and type
     About your PC.
  2. Send us the information listed under Device specifications.
  
  

Moving forward, if you're multitasking while playing, we recommend that you play this game only without doing other tasks. Pressing ALT-TAB or performing a multitasking interferes with the performance of your video card, especially if you're running a heavy
game like Rainbow Six Siege. It will generate screen viewing issues like intermittently switching your game screen between your desktop environment.

For now, restart your game and do not press ALT+TAB while playing. This will allow your video card to dedicate its graphics performance on the game only instead of your desktop environment.

If you would like me to provide additional advice, simply respond to this thread. I will get notified and I’ll reply to you as soon as I can.

 

Disabling this makes my game alt-tab faster, but why?

- Maybe Focus Assist slows Alt-TAB process while it checks that Alt-TABing it's not something trying to rob the game of focus

(which of course, minimising a game does) ?

Yet another pointless Win10 gaming 'feature' ? Other than maybe preventing an update from rebooting while you are in the

middle of a session, but that shouldn't generally happen if you make good use of the 18 'active hours' available in Windows Updates anyway.

.