Unable to select the window of an auto-minimise application

Operating System Info

Windows 11

Other OS

No response

OBS Studio Version

32.0.0

OBS Studio Version (Other)

No response

OBS Studio Log URL

https://obsproject.com/logs/NpJ7eqxHU24f1wht

OBS Studio Crash Log URL

No response

Expected Behavior

I should be able to select auto-minimize applications for window capture.

I don't mean record while it's minimized. I just need to be able to select it in OBS, so that OBS can record it once I restore the window.

Current Behavior

For some application/games that auto-minimized, I cannot select them in any way via OBS.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Run some game that auto-minimizes on alt-tab.
2. Alt-tab to OBS (which minimizes the application).
3. Try to select that game as a window in OBS.
4. It doesn't show up in the list (since it's minimized).
5. The game can't be captured.

Anything else we should know?

I'm not entirely sure whether this is a bug or feature request.

I also tried using Game Capture. That sometimes doesn't see these games and sometimes sees them but can't capture them (with any combination of options, "capture any full-screen application" also doesn't work).

I can sometimes fix this by tricking the game to prevent it from minimising, or by making the game windowed (if that's an option), which makes it show up in OBS, then I select it, and it captures correctly even if after I make it full-screen again (in the log above, I did exactly that).

In this particular case, I was running the game through Sandboxie. I think Game Capture also fails outside of that (I'm not 100% sure), but I would like to be able to capture in this scenario in any case.

Possible solutions

I can think of a few possible ways to fix this:

• Let me select any running application (not just any window).
  • Maybe it could exclude minimised windows by default (to not pollute the default list). But then one of the options in the Window dropdown can be "select minimised application", which lists all apps. That could be in a separate pop-up, or it could just add the rest to the same Window dropdown temporarily (i.e. until you select a window or the dropdown is closed). It would be a long list, but that's better than simply not being able to capture any of those apps. Or there could be an option in the settings to allow showing minimised applications. Or this could be in a config file.
• Let me to write the window title myself (since it matches based on window title anyway).
• Check and store which windows there are every few seconds, then give the option to select any recent window. This means if I alt-tab out of the app and it minimises, it'll still show up, because it was recently a window.
• Make Game Capture work properly to capture any full-screen application. I guess that might be another bug, but that's potentially a lot harder to fix than just giving me the option to capture something OBS is already able to capture.

No source file, test, or entry point is named. Start by reproducing the Windows 11 window-capture scenario and reviewing the linked OBS log, then trace how minimized windows are discovered and selected. Done means an auto-minimized application can be selected for window capture and captured after restoration.