VBGamer

Imo opinion, windowed mode is the way to go, you can enable alt-tab by setting the directinput cooperativelevel to nonexclusive etc, but you MAY have to restore all your surfaces again (and reload your images) when you switch back (this happens in Win2k, because of it's Memory optimising "Features" which optimises your memory, after a resolution switch, killing all the surfaces). This is how i do it. Get a crappy second monitor and an old gfx card. Then have VB open in one monitor and your app in the other, that way you can easily step through the code in the second monitor, and watch what happens in the first =) Of course thats the complex way to around it, but a second monitor is a must have imho for general daily use too =) Adam