Media Center Quick Tip – Enable Media Only Mode

Windows Media Center works great on touchscreens, and in the right environment, it can be used as a media and control hub for your household. If you’re using Media Center in this manner, you may want to keep prying eyes and fingers from closing or minimizing Media Center. Normally when you start mousing or poking around Media Center’s interface, it presents the standard Minimize, Restore, and Close buttons—even in full screen. With this quick tip, you can suppress those buttons from appearing.

Instructions

Select Media Only in the Tasks strip

Click Yes to confirm the change

At this point, Media Center will switch to full screen if it wasn’t already, and a lock icon in the upper-right corner will indicate that it’s in Media Only mode.

To exit Media Only mode, select Exit Media Only in the Tasks strip. Note that Media Only mode doesn’t prevent keyboard users from accessing the start menu or task switching to another running program—it just removes the window control buttons from interface, which is most useful for touchscreen applications.