Playing games windowed is one of the many advantages of computer gaming over console gaming. One can play their favorite game and also search the web, manage background music, and perform a plethora of tasks without having to wait for the game to reload full screen. Although this slightly lowers the horsepower of that game, most mid to high end computers will likely range little to no difference at all.

Most developers have embraced the demand of users wishing to be able to "alt+tab" out of their titles without inhibiting their game-play. Steam has recently introduced a startup command '-noborder' into their titles, which is simply icing on the cake to their immense fan base. But what about other applications, sush as Crysis 2, that support being windowed but lack a border less option? There are simple applications such as "Shiftwindow" that will move the border up and out of sight, but these applications, in my opinion, are primitive. What other options could there possibly be?

There is an application made by Microsoft called Winspy that is shipped with Visual Studio that modifies options like the windows border around applications. A developer dubbed "Catch 22" has it released for everyone free of charge. Now lets learn how it works:

Dragon Age: Borderless

First, make sure you have Winspy installed.

Below is our starting product. This is achieved by either unchecking "Fullscreen" in the options, or press 'Alt+Tab' while the game is open.



Next, we need to open Winspy and drag the "target" onto our application like so.



Select styles, and click the first set of '...' (Pictured below)



Now, unselect "WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW" and "WS_POPUPWINDOW" and click apply. (Should be the top two options, pictured)



Final Product:



The only fall back of doing this is that you have to manually do it every time. Personally, it does not bother me at all. Lacking that annoying border and being able to 'Alt+Tab' at will is great. I have only tried this on Windows 7, but it has worked on Crysis 1+2, Dragon Age, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Please comment below with any questions you may have, or other programs that this method does/does not work on.

Happy Gaming!

UPDATE: This also works on Mass Effect, All Call of Duty titles, and even Unreal engine titles such as Killing Floor.

Now I can retire DxWind.

Im not a huge fan. One reason I cooked this method up.

looks gorgeous, nice work! I know I use a similar program for starcraft, is called scloader2b