Hello, we hope you're all well.

We would like to first explain why it is taking so long to deliver an option to disable Steamworks. Despite being an incredibly cheap software, the studio supported the app for more than a year adding new features and improvements for free. Unfortunately, due to poor sales and Steam user reviews, staffs gradually left the studio one by one. Our sales could not support a single staff so we understand their decision and never fault them for leaving.

One major stress our studio had to deal with was the upset users complaining about Steamworks. Initially, we did not think this would be a major problem as it is an app sold on the Steam platform. It was something that is expected on all products on Steam, but because some of our users found it distracting, we eventually added a workaround at one point. However, this resulted many of AV software giving false positives, leaving even more bad reviews despite us noting it in various areas of the community. This frustrated a lot of developers who were already on the verge of quitting. We contacted Valve to allow us provide an option to disable in-game status via Steamworks API, but they told us there is no plan on adding such option. We spent months experimenting new methods to avoid false positives, but our Steam review rating kept going down with poor sales. This must have sealed the deal for the core staffs to quit as well.

Recently, a few core staffs returned on the promise of bringing the Steamworks toggle to drive better sales and work on new potential projects. They have recently finished developing a new working prototype to disable Steamworks, and we are working onto bringing that feature to Magic Borderless first as well. It has been thoroughly tested to be false positive-free, and it will remain completely invisible from the Steam status until it is actually being used (e.g. a configuration window is open).

Bad Steam reviews do more harm than good. For feedback, it is much more efficient to receive communication and support via the Steam forums as it provides a proper communication system to deliver a solution. If you had left a bad review in the past due to not having the option to disable Steamworks, please consider changing it to positive when we deliver the feature soon.

To those who still had faith in us and still remained to support us, we sincerely would like to thank you.
We're glad that we finally managed to find a solution to bring it to Magic Borderless.

Please stay safe,

Studio Christmas

Ohayo!

This is an update to fix the notorious high CPU usage bug introduced from our last major update.

It turns out, it was simply the Magic scheduler not properly resting between loops when it needed to.

We deeply apologize for those who have been suffering from this issue. We will make sure to let this type of bug never crawl into Magic Borderless in the future.

• Fixed the high CPU usage bug.
  
• Fixed a crash when installations of steamapps folders were removed or otherwise moved.
  
• Fixed a crash at start on certain machines.
  
• Fixed a random crash while on low performance mode (when Magic Borderless is running in the background).
  
• Fixed a bug on Steam game detection causing high CPU usage.

If you run into any other problems, please feel free to stop by our forums and let us know!

Happy Magic Borderless gaming!

Ohayo! How's our favorite group of gamers doing?

We've been spending quite a bit of time to rewrite some of the existing code. Although we consider this to be a series of micro-optimizations, we simply made the program to do things more efficiently. This was necessary to support UWP apps.

With Xbox Game Pass becoming a popular option to enjoy games among gamers, we decided this was the perfect time to work on UWP support!

Please note that the support for UWP apps really depends on how the app was coded. This update just allows Magic Borderless to detect them and communicate properly. Most of UWPs run under a heavily sandboxed environment by Windows, and will not expose proper handles for us to manipulate them.

- Although the manipulation algorithm has not gone through a significant change for non-UWP apps, it is possible (although we think it's unlikely) that we may have made a mistake that broke support. We've tested all of high-profile or tricky games to make sure they work, but if you do stumble upon a game that no longer works properly with Magic Borderless v1.00, let us know on the forums!
- Your monitor settings may have been scrambled. This is a one-time reset that had to be done as monitors are linked via their unique ID instead of the order they were initialized.

• Added support for Microsoft/Windows Store (UWP) apps.
  • Adds support for heavily sandboxed UWP apps.
    
  • Added support for apps with UWP Title Bar system (e.g. Forza Horizon 4, Gears, etc.).
    • Adds "Microsoft Store App" option for UWP apps that do not work. This enables a different type of borderless mode that runs like fullscreen, but has fast window switching.
  • Please note that this will require you to reconfigure UWP app Wizard settings just this once. Your old setting is not erased, but it won't be used anymore for the reason above.
    
  • All UWP apps can now have their individual Wizard settings just like the rest of apps.
    
  • UWP apps will now properly report their executable name.
    
  • Supports UWP app icons!
    
  • UWP apps can now be launched from the context menu.
    
  • Fixed a small number of UWP apps causing crashes.
    
  • Fixed UWP apps not working on random occasions.
• Added Mouse Cursor Hiding. You can now target apps to hide its mouse cursor.
  
  • Added "Restore HIdden Cursor" to the Tools menu so in case something goes wrong you can always reset them. You can also use "[Left Win] + [Y]" anywhere to reset it.
• Added a new borderless mode: "Push the Borders", providing the highest compatibility of all other options! This will enlarge the app screen and push the borders outside of the screen. Please note that if you are using multi-monitors, other monitors may see these borders. This is only recommended for games that just seem to never work with any other settings.
  
• Added Steam app detector.
  • Steam apps are now launched via Steam protocol instead of directly executing them. This ensures some games to run properly (e.g. Resident Evil 5).
    
  • Added Steam Guides menu to the right-click context menu.
    
    
  • We will be using this more in the future to provide convenience features for your Steam games.
• Added Auto-detection Exception Paths. Any apps installed on these added paths will never trigger Auto-Detection. Only non-configured apps will be ignored on these paths.
  
• As re-initializing Steamworks causes freezes, instead of completely shutting down, Magic Borderless will now restart silently* when Steam shuts down. *To avoid confusion, it will briefly show a notification on the bottom right that the program is restarting.
  
• When a target app is skipped and Force Override is disabled (default setting), there is now a notification system so new users do not get confused why their Magic was not applied.
  
• Changed app icon container to a darker color as most icons are designed to display on such tone.
  
• Added a way to set a custom Display Name that displays over their window names. This can be done from the right-click context menu of the app list.
  
• Added more redundant checks to avoid file corruption on system interruptions.
  
• Added icon cache to speed up initial launch. You can also refresh icon cache from the right-click context menu on the app list, if your app ever updates to a new icon.
  
• Rewrote monitor detection to bound them to unique Ids.
  
• Magic Borderless no longer simply crashes with an error message when there's save corruption. It will first attempt to restore.
  • Configurations now create a backup point of last successful configuration, so in case of corruption, it restores to the previous point automatically.
• Improved Magic Borderless cold boot (booting the app for the first time after the system starts) performance.
  
• Greatly improved the main window UI performance.
  
• Improved shutting down of the program to be more delicate, ensuring no tasks are abruptly terminated.
  
• Fixed the menu bar jitter on selection when mouse is resting on the edge of the menu.
  
• Fixed Window Escape overlays not being properly cleaned up after the parent app has shutdown.
  
• Fixed Window Escape sometimes not stealing focus from games.
  
• Fixed memory leak with expired icons.
  
• Fixed memory leak with mouse hooks.
  
• Fixed rare crashes when the program is taking too long to load.
  
• Fixed ordering for configured windows sometimes not saving.
  
• Fixed occasions where the Steam client would falsely report "shutting down", causing Magic Borderless to shut down as well.
  
• Fixed Magic being called more than once in rare occasions when system briefly slows down.
  
• Fixed a crash when the trayicon was clicked too early while it is loading.
  
• Fixed a crash when Steam was initialized too soon.
  
• Fixed a crash with Window-Escape when a new window was created on top of the target window.
  
• Fixed Magic Borderless Main Lab window taking way too long to open from the tray when it was loaded the first time.
  
• Optimized a few calls for mouse locks.
  
• Optimized various window event hooks.
  
• Optimized window monitoring system further which was a bonus came from the new algorithm to support more apps (UWP).
  
• Included further UI improvements.

This update concludes our focus on enabling borderless on all apps we could possibly support. Apps that are not compatible now likely are simply coded that way to not respond to window property changes from third-party apps. This does not mean we've stopped working to increase compatibility. It means our main focus will now move on to adding more cool and usability features.

If you are enjoying these updates, please spread the word and give us a good review. It can really help us keep working on Magic Borderless further!

Always with love,

Studio Christmas.

Ayo, gamers!
We hope you're grabbing some awesome games on this Summer Sale (and of course playing them)!

This is probably one of the most boring updates you'll ever see, but it was very important that we get this pushed as the game detection seemed to have serious issues with Java programs.

v0.99.4.1

• Magic Borderless now properly exits when the Steam client requests it to shutdown.
  
• Fixed rare apps getting detected as "games" when it is graphical hardware-accelerated on slow computers.
  
• Fixed all graphical hardware-accelerated Java apps getting detected as "games".
  
• Fixed the application freezing when Steam was shut off unexpectedly (including crashes).

Behavior changes to the Steam client shutting down
Magic Borderless used to freeze after Steam has shut down. This led to configuration corruption on rare cases. To prevent such tragedy, we are shutting the program down when Steam does.
We're not a huge fan of this behavior so if you also dislike this, don't worry! This is just a temporary workaround to freezing. Our solution to keep Magic Borderless running after Steam shuts down is already in the works, but we need more time. Because we didn't want our users to experience configuration corruption or freezes (without not knowing why), we had to implement this as an emergency patchwork.

We are, as we always have been, working really hard to bring you guys a bigger update. In the meantime, please enjoy this small package of hotfixes.

This update has passed all antivirus (AV) vendors tests available on VirusTotal. If you're still getting false positive alerts, please update your AV, in case you're still concerned.

If you are enjoying these updates, please spread the word and give us a good review. It can really help us keep working on Magic Borderless further!

Always with love,

Studio Christmas.

Good day, everyone!
We're here to improve the Magic further and fix some important bugs!

If you have missed our huge recent major update (v0.99), be sure to check them out first: https://steamcommunity.com/games/1022230/announcements/detail/1587996099243456528
Magic Borderless' ever growing compatibility is now even more improved to support games that are already borderless! Several improvements have been made to also work with some rare indie games.

v0.99.4

• Improved the borderless algorithm to support more tricky games (mainly some indie games).
  
• Improved window management to work on games with native borderless support without the use of Forced Override option.
  
  • This also adds support for Unity games with "-popupwindow" launch parameter! Special thanks to cutiebabie for testing a tricky Unity game for us!
• Improved font rendering to look clearer.
  
• Improved spacing on App Wizard UI.
  
• Improved optimization further.
  
• Fixed fonts looking a bit blurry on large monitors with smaller resolutions.
  
• Fixed Guard Powder infinitely resizing target window.
  
• Fixed the configuration file getting saved unnecessarily. This was prone to configuration file corruption.
  
• Fixed some tooltips expiring too soon.
  
• Fixed Workshop menu staying disabled from an outdated value.
  
• Fixed a crash when Windows audio service is disabled, or otherwise unavailable.
  
• Fixed a rare crash on launch when a lot of apps are being launched on Windows starup.

This update has passed all antivirus (AV) vendors tests available on VirusTotal. If you're still getting false positive alerts, please update your AV, in case you're still concerned.

If you are enjoying these updates, please spread the word and give us a good review. It can really help us keep working on Magic Borderless further!

Always with love,

Studio Christmas.

Waow! We're back already!
Yes, this minor update released a few days after our major update still adds new features to Magic Borderless.

If you have missed our huge major update, be sure to check them out first: https://steamcommunity.com/games/1022230/announcements/detail/1587996099243456528

We've added two new features that some games can definitely benefit from it, and further improved the game detection algorithm.

v0.99.3 Update Notes (includes v0.99.1 notes as well)

• Steamworks can no longer be disabled from now on. Magic Borderless will still function offline and before launching Steam.
  
  • We regret to inform you that this is stripped due to the large number of concerned users initiating refunds and leaving us negative reviews after they got false positive virus alerts.
    
  • Our Steam user review rating has notably dropped. Despite our best attempts to keep developing Magic Borderless with new features and improvements for free while offering a very low price for the product, this one false positive incident has only damaged the reputation we've built. Please note that our sales don't even cover any of the developers working hours.
    
  • This is very disheartening for us as well, so please accept our sincere apology. We will continue to explore our options to bring back the toggle while we wait for Steamworks to support unlinking running executable after necessary SDK calls have been made.
    
  • This, however, allows to spend more time developing features that could fully utilize Steamworks, and more new features while not having to spend time working on a version running with Steamworks disabled.
• Added delay time! you can now set delay before Magic is applied to games that freak out when they are applied too soon (Under Night In-Birth: Late[st]).
  
• Improved borderless algorithm to support more games.
  
  • Improves the Magic effectiveness on GameMaker games (Undertale, Hero Siege, etc.). They should work at all times now.
    
  • Improves the reliability of Calming Agent.
• Added new borderless mode. Originally, if you're not using custom sizing, it would expand to cover the original spaces used by the borders. It no longer does this by default, but we still gave you an option for it.
  
• Further improved windowed game detection.
  
• Updated Steamworks to the latest version.
  
• Wizard window now has scrollbar for screen resolutions smaller than its intended size.
  
• Removed launching on a relative path of MagicBorderless from the launcher to avoid false positives from outdated antiviruses.
  
• Fixed Respecting Taskbar always maximizing the windows regardless of sizing settings.
  
• Fixed games that used to work not getting Magic applied anymore without Force Override option on.

Regarding Virus Detection
On v0.99 we packaged some libraries into the executable hoping to reduce the file count, and created a separate launcher for Steamworks so people who wish to not have a permanent "playing Magic Borderless" on their status can still use the app through Steam.
However, this turned out to alert a lot of AVs for false positives. From this, we learned to delay our updates from now on to get our executable whitelisted by various AV vendors first before we push it to the public channel.
We have worked incredibly hard over the past week to ensure it no longer raises false positives.

If you are enjoying these updates, please spread the word and give us a good review. It can really help us keep working on Magic Borderless further!

Always with love,

Studio Christmas.

For the hotfix: Update Notes for v0.99.1 at the bottom
Alakazam!
Heyo, everyone!

Wait, what? A major update already?! Yes! And it's HUGE!

We're bringing some significant upgrades to Magic Borderless with brand new features and some awesome improvements to the detection algorithms!
We call this the MAGICAL UPGRADE UPDATE, probably the biggest update yet!

In this update, we went back to the roots and further improved the "hassle-free" aspect of applying borderless. We made some significant changes to the the system so from now on, Magic Borderless can detect WINDOWED GAMES!

Without further ado, let's get into the goodies!

v0.99 Update Notes

• Added Automatic Detection for Bordered Windowed Games. Magic Borderless will ask you if you want to add them to the configured list. Of all games we tested, it had 100% accuracy and zero false positives. Please let us know on the forums if you find any oddballs.
  
  
  • When enabled (default on), it will prompt you to the configuration Wizard, or automatically apply your defaults if Auto-Apply option is on!
    
  
  
  • You can always disable them, but for maximum convenience we recommend having it turned on.
    
    
  
  
• Significantly improved target window algorithm. This will now work on multi-window games (usually fan made mods or launchers) and properly filter out launchers, setting windows, loading popups, splash windows and whatever that's not the game screen.
  
  
• Added Compact UI mode. This will sacrifice some of the information displayed, but free up space to display more apps.
  
  
  • Smaller but more apps on a screen!
    
  
  
• Added Fill Background which adds a background (default: black) to the target app. This is useful if you don't want any distractions on smaller sized windows. Supporters (owner of any Donation DLC) can customize the background with the same editor we provide for skins! Please note that Background customization is a global setting per user, and not part of a skin. For customization to load, Steamworks must be enabled.
  
  
  • Look at that subtle off-Sans coloring. The tasteful thickness of it.
    
    
  • Art by Dragoreon
    
    
  • Suppoters can create their own background. The button is located in the Wizard.
    
  
  
• Added Keep Aspect Ratio for maximizing windows so some games do not look stretched. This will work nicely with the new Fill Background feature.
  
  
  • Keep the aspect ratio of the game window when maximizing!
    
    
  
  
• Added Play Monitor option, a unique feature for multi-monitor users who like to switch where they play games on from time to time.
  
  
  • When a monitor is selected to be a Play Monitor, any configured games with "Send it to Play Monitor" option enabled will be moved to that monitor. You can cycle through monitors to set them to a Play Monitor with a hotkey (Left Windows key + "O").
    
    
  
  
• Added Force Override. Magic Borderless now uses a smart algorithm to detect the game window before applying Magic. If it fails to detect the game window and skips applying magic, you can force the override.
  
• Added a hotkey to restore Ninja Mode windows. It will only reveal one at a time.
  
• Optimized the monitoring algorithm which vastly improves the performance and UI responsiveness.
  
• Optimized the blinking animations further to help the main UI feel more responsive when there are a lot of windows running on integrated graphics cards.
  
• Updated app information in the lists to show current window size and status of borderless magic (marked "★" when applied, or "☉" when borderless is done by the game itself.).
  
• Magic Borderless Main Lab now remembers its window size.
  
• You can now set window sizes smaller than 800 x 600.
  
• Ignored games now have a red badge.
  
  
  • Now we know which ones are REJECTED!
    
  
  
• Games with invalid path (likely moved or deleted) now also have a greyed out badge. They also no longer display the placeholder icon.
  
  
  • Oh noes, it doesn't exist anymore. Time to get it fixed!
    
  
  
• The Lab (the main window) now changes the color of its title bar when the Magic is paused.
  
  • But why would you ever want to pause MAGIC?!
    
  
  
• Pausing Magic now also disables all auto-detections.
  
• Improved the overlay system used for Window Escape and backgrounds.
  
• Improved filtering algorithm to exclude a rare type of invisible apps.
  
• Improved quality of the app icons on the list to be more consistent.
  
• Improved application scaling.
  
• Changed default values (for new users) for Fullscreen App Auto-Detection to disabled, and Bordered Window Game Auto-Detection to enabled.
  
• Fixed Auto-Detections kicking in while being configured.
  
• Fixed audio pops and random sound effects being played at start.
  
• Fixed changing to the correct path for missing apps not properly updating context menus.
  
• Fixed volume controls and Window-Escape still being active with "Always Ignore" option on.
  
• Fixed app settings not correctly synching after folder path has been reassigned, causing a minor memory leak.
  
• Fixed excluded apps getting detected or getting magic applied.
  
• Fixed apps with multiple windows not excluding other child windows when a new app is set to "exclude".
  
• Fixed a brief jitter on the tray icon when Magic Borderless is launched.
  
• Fixed a file saving error message not being displayed.
  
• Fixed a crash when enabling Steamworks back.
  
• Fixed a crash when a running app was removed from the settings.
  
• Fixed a crash when changing the order of an app in a list of one item.

If you have missed our last minor update, don't forget to check out the new volume management features:

• Easy and quick volume controls all in your hands!
  
  

If you are enjoying these updates, please spread the word and give us a good review. It can really help us keep working on Magic Borderless further!

Always with love,

Studio Christmas.

Yes, hello!

This is a very minor update to fix some UI issues on Windows with different scaling options.

We realize this is a very tiny update, but hopefully this answers any potential question on what was included in this sudden update.

v0.98.5.1 Update Notes

• Added a potential fix for ugly font issues on different scaling options.

We're currently working on two major features right now so don't get too disappointed! A new update is being worked on that will bring more exciting news in the future!

How are you doing, everybody?

Oh yes, we're back! We decided to combine a few minor updates together to deliver you... a bigger minor update via this announcement!

From now on, we will be delivering minor update news on this official announcement channel as many of our users seem to miss them when they are posted on the forums.

Although it's considered a minor, this version still brings a new feature and improves the software.

v0.98.5 Update Notes

• Added App Custom Volume control. You can now control your app volumes on the right click context menu from configured app list.
  
• Updated Background Volume option to turn the option off entirely when it is set to 0.
  
• Improved visuals of the separator lines on the context menu to work better with different menu colors (for Premium Skins). This style was already applied to the menu with v0.97.
  
• Fixed app volume always returning to full volume.
  
• Fixed various skin cache containing more than one skin, resulting a cache corruption. If your old skins no longer work, please contact us on our forums and we'll build one for you.
  
• Fixed the main window not showing up in taskbar when "Start minimized in Tray" option was used.

If you are enjoying these updates, please spread the word and give us a good review. It can really help us keep working on Magic Borderless further!

Always with love,

Studio Christmas.

Grüezi, Magic gamers!

After we added ways for you guys to customize some visuals from the last update, in this release we wanted to focus on providing various additional options that gamers find useful. Some of them were even requested features we got from the forums!

We would like to call this the first Swiss Knife Update, where we provide smaller tools to make Magic Borderless the best ultimate tool for windowed gaming!

We understand this update is not as big as everyone hoped, but there were some significant code changes which will help us bring little tools in the future.

v0.98 Update Notes

• Added Lower Volume/Mute In Background. This will lower the volume of your app or mute them if it is out of focus. When the app regains its focus, it will restore the audio level.
  
• Added a new option for taskbar management. You can now completely hide Windows Taskbar. Note that Taskbar will only be hidden when you're using the selected app so they will be restored properly when they are out of focus. This can be also useful when Windows bugs out and still displays the Taskbar on full screen apps.
  
• Added Cursor Reset shortcut in Tools. This helps when you lose track of your tiny cursor on your screen.
  
• You can now drag apps on the app lists to change orders. Orders for running apps (on the left) will only remain valid in the same session, but configured apps (on the right) will remember their order.
  
• Fixed a crash during a launch when a monitor is not properly initialized.
  
• Fixed a crash caused by files in networked drives.
  
• Fixed application icons not properly showing on rare unicode paths.
  
• Fixed a very rare bug where the mouse lock would not initiate if the new window was detected while the magic is being processed.

If you are enjoying these updates, please spread the word and give us a good review. It can really help us keep working on Magic Borderless further!

Always with love,

Studio Christmas.