Windows 7 Tip of the Week
Full Screen Toggle

Tip date: March 12, 2010
Tipster: Hernan Heyman

This will likely be the simplest tip I'll ever document: Microsoft has long used the F11 key as a shortcut for placing certain windows in full screen mode. Some may be familiar that Internet Explorer works this way for example. But many likely don't know that it works as a full screen toggle for many other window types as well, including those windows, applications, and control panels that are based on Windows Explorer.

To see this effect in action, open Internet Explorer and navigate to a favorite web site. Then, tap the F11 key. The browser "chrome"--that part of the window that surrounds the content you're viewing--almost completely disappears, putting the browser into a sort of kiosk mode.

Internet Explorer 8 in full-sceen mode.

Tip: In IE, you can temporarily display the upper UI chrome, which includes the Back and Forward buttons and Address Bar, by mousing up to the top of the screen.

To reverse this effect, just tap F11 again.

As noted above, the F11 full screen toggle doesn't just work in IE. You can also use this view in Windows Explorer windows, which can be particularly useful in windows with lots of visual content.

A Windows Explorer window in full-screen mode.

Tip: And yes, with Windows Explorer, you can also temporarily display the upper UI chrome by mousing up to the top of the screen.

F11 also works as a full screen toggle in a surprising range of applications that ship in Windows 7, including Paint (for viewing the current image), Windows Media Player (during video playback), and XPS Viewer. Many third party applications also support this behavior. Among them are web browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

Google Chrome also uses F11 to toggle its own full-screen mode.

Sadly, support for F11 is somewhat erratic. Many Microsoft applications, including productivity apps like WordPad and even media apps like Windows Media Center, do not support F11. So you'll have to experiment a bit.

--Paul Thurrott
March 12, 2010

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