Skyrim minimize black-screen and crash fix
UPDATE: We have posted a complete Skyrim glitch-fix guide, found here. If you're experiencing crashes or glitches, check it out for more detailed help.
Skyrim's big release has not been free from its share of video hangs and crashes; we noticed earlier while playing that minimizing and maximizing Skyrim often resulted in a black-screen graphics hang. There's an easy workaround to fix Skyrim's screen going blank on maximizing that we've detailed below -- it's certainly no permanent fix, but for now, it's an easy workaround that anyone can do for Skyrim on the PC.
Follow these steps to successfully restore Skyrim and avoid an alt-F4 of doom:
1. Minimize Skyrim
2. When you're done looking up cheat codes, Maximize Skyrim.
3. When the notorious black-screen window comes up (with no 'x' or 'minimize' options showing), press ctrl+shift+esc to pop-up the task manager.
4. Close task manager immediately. This will re-activate Skyrim as the active window. You should notice that it is now full screen and the process bar at the top vanishes.
Hopefully this fixed your issue! Keep an eye out on our site for additional Skyrim tweaks as the weekend rolls on.
If you're still looking for a PC to try Skyrim on, why not try out our $550 PC build list we put together?
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2012-07-19 01:37:03 | michal909 - I have better idea
If you have Win7, when you're alt-tabbed out of a game, just alt-tab in the game and when that weird windows shows, press win+tab. It works "a bit" faster than opening Task Manager (lol).
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2012-07-17 03:35:20 | Val
They all work for me but with the same problem.The mouse cursor remains along with the normal one in the game and it is very annoying to have the mouse moving around.Any solutions?
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2012-06-06 01:48:03 | someone
it was working for me before but now i reinstalled windows and doesnt work
:(
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2012-05-27 10:53:51 | jim beam - easier fix is...
alt+tab, and select it, do this twice...always works the second time
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2011-11-14 01:57:00 | anon - or
You can also just alt+tab to skyrim a second time from the black screen
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ed wrote:video card: GeForce GTX 285
drivers: not sure how to find, but may be 8.16.11.9107You should try updating your drivers to the newest beta drivers and see if that helps at all.
If you are on Windows 7 64-bit or Vista 64-bit, this is what you need:
If not, simply go here and select your card, then look for the most recent version that'll run on your OS:
http://www.nvidia.com/download/find.aspx
Hopefully that helps! They just released the beta versions, so I'd imagine they might.
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For me, it easily works to simply press the Windows logo key and then click with the mouse over Skyrim, it will work perfectly. I haven't tried it yet but I think it may also work to just press the Windows key twice, which opens AND closes the Start Menu making Skyrim again the active window.