Is it possible to make consoles full screen?

Question

Is it possible on to switch a console to full-screen in Windows XP on a single monitor? Meaning on a dual monitor that only the left (or right) screen displays the console while the other one remains on Windows. By full-screen I mean true-fullscreen mode, not just resizing (maximize) to fill in the screen.

Answer 1

Windows 7 (and I believe Vista) doesn't support the full-screen feature for MS-DOS or Command Prompt console. It doesn't even allow full-screen when using the Command Prompt via Windows 7's Windows XP Mode. On Windows XP, it can be set to full screen via Alt + Enter or right-clicking the console title bar and selecting Full Screen.

A possible workaround on Windows 7: With Command Prompt open, right click the console title bar, then select Properties. Within the Layout tab, you can adjust the width and height. My suggestion is: Adjust only the width to match the width of your screen. Once the adjustments are made, double click the console title bar. Using this workaround gives it the closest full-screen effect that can be achieved.

Answer 2

Is it possible to make consoles full screen?

Why yes; yes it is, but only up to Windows XP, it is no longer supported in Vista and up. You can get basic full-screen functionality with just Alt+Enter, but for better compatibility and to resolve some issues, you can install the Full screen video driver for console:

1. Open the Add Hardware applet in the Control Panel
2. Click Next, then select Already Connected
3. Select Add a new hardware device at the bottom of the list
4. Choose Manually Select (Advanced)
5. Select Show All Devices
6. Under Manufacturer, select Microsoft Corporation
7. Under Model, select Full screen video driver for console
8. Next, Next, Finish (reboot if prompted)

Now you can press Alt+Enter in console windows to switch them to fullscreen mode (it displays in whichever monitor is set to the primary).

NB: this works best for the command-prompt (ie, text-mode) while graphics-mode games and such tend to have problems (eg hanging). If you want to get games working in full-screen (or at all), then you need to use various hacks to get them to work such as using the nolfb^[1] and cli2nop^[2] tools and VDMSound.

Answer 3

ShiftWindow : Resize an app window to get pseudo fullscreen, this will hide titlebars and window borders for msot applications, you may need to actually increase cmd.exe window width from the properties dialog first to be effective.

I haven't tested the above but this might work, good luck :)

Answer 4

Cygwin has a custom terminal that will go "true" full screen.

By default only the scrollbar on the right will be visible. You can turn those off in options if you desire, and also enable block cursor or whatever other flavor you like. It's a completely custom Terminal implementation, not a regular windows window console app.

To toggle cygwin terminal fullscreen mode simply press Alt+Enter

Incidentally the cygwin terminal also supports transparency, if you like to have your log or output in a separate terminal underneath your working terminal, like you can on most linux distros.