How to Enable Fullscreen for Console Applications in Windows 10 and Windows 11

Question

It has been observed that Windows 10 and Windows 11 have different behaviors regarding fullscreen for console applications. Currently, a console application does not enter fullscreen mode as it did on Windows 10 with the code i used.

CodeBlock:

class Program
{
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", ExactSpelling = true)]
    private static extern IntPtr GetConsoleWindow();

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int nCmdShow);

    private const int SW_MAXIMIZE = 3;

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        IntPtr handle = GetConsoleWindow();
        ShowWindow(handle, SW_MAXIMIZE);

        Console.WriteLine("This is a fullscreen console application.");
        Console.ReadLine();
    }
    
}

Is there a way to enable fullscreen for console applications on both versions so it will work no matter if im on Windows 10 or 11? Additionally, could the fact that the console app executes commands instantly instead of line by line impact this functionality? Any guidance on resolving this issue and a few more issues would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Edit:

I found out the Console on Windows 11 is different, can i somehow replace it with the older one from windows 10 and test if it works?

it may be bc the newer Console has different features on the UI

Answer

Hi @Mr.Postal , Welcome to Microsoft Q&A,

In Windows 11, the default console experience is Windows Terminal instead of the old classic console (ConHost). Windows Terminal does not support direct control of the window size or fullscreen state through ShowWindow, because it is a modern multi-tab terminal.

One feature of Windows Terminal is that it will set a special environment variable WT_SESSION. You can check this variable to determine if you are running in Windows Terminal.

If you want to use the classic ConHost console on Windows 11, you can change the system default settings to force the use of the classic console. Of course, this is not convenient to perform on the client machine, you can test it yourself on the development machine.

For now, at present, Windows Terminal does not support resizing through the console application. For an alternative method, see How to Resize a Console App in C# - Windows Terminal

Best Regards,

Jiale

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How to Enable Fullscreen for Console Applications in Windows 10 and Windows 11

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