I played the game for a while now and just noticed that switching between applications seems to be totally disabled. Neither the Win-key works, nor Alt+Tab.

If anyone has an idea, if (and how) switching out of and back to the game or even a windowed mode is possible, please give me some hints :)

Btw: I don't like D3DWindower, so I didn't try it (because I won't use it).

I think it causes the game to crash. One of the reviews suggested that.

(from diamondspider):

The main problem is that unlike most GOG games, this game seems to fully crash if I get any kind of dialog popping up (skype, etc.).. it also has Alt-tab disabled and doesn't seem to have a windowed mode. For the money I'll not exactly complain, but GOG ususually does amazingly well allowing games to run well under modern Windows 7 conditions, but this seems to be an exception that I have to set my computer up specially to get working.

Thanks, I did not read through the reviews.
It's a pity, though, because the turn based playing style "recommends" it as a game that could be played on the side...

I've been doing this quite a bit the past year because I like having net radio going and easy access to program's window to change the station.

My favorite 'On the side' games are...

Ticket to Ride
Armageddon Empires
Sim City 4 Deluxe (instructions can be found via Google how to resize window mode)
Faster Than Light (FTL)
Darklands
NEO Scavenger
Torchlight 2 (crashes a lot though because I'm on an old PC that can only handle 1gig of RAM)

I played Etherlords for a good four hours yesterday and hadn't even considered dropping it into window but usually when games crash frequently while another app is open it's due to a shortage of RAM.

Ok, I went and did some ka-diddling. If you access the game's main directory (c:\Program Files\GOG\Etherlords) you'll find an executable called 'Autorun.'

Double click and run the executable and it will give you video set options. You can play windowed but at largest 1024x768 and it will fix the window from the top left of your screen.

Also try opting for 16-bit color depth.

You can also edit the game's configuration ini file but any resolution beyond 1024x768 will only stretch the videos and not the actual game screen once you make it the game's menu screen.

Thanks for your suggestions. I cannot try them now, but will test it when I am at home again. I will report if and how it worked.

I did as you said but still no windowed screen.
Would be really great if it would be able to play it on the side.

Great.
For me too. Thanks a lot!

That is an improvement, but the windows sits uncomfortably at 0,0 for me and has no windows borders (windows 8). I am tryng to use DXWND, and with much pains found this config, which seems to work well together with Autrun settings "Full screen+32 bit true color".
[target]
title0=Etherlords 1
path0=D:\Programme\Etherlords\Etherlords.exe
module0=
opengllib0=
ver0=0
coord0=1
flag0=1075060768
flagg0=1744830464
flagh0=20
flagi0=4
tflag0=0
initx0=0
inity0=0
minx0=0
miny0=0
maxx0=0
maxy0=0
posx0=50
posy0=50
sizx0=1024
sizy0=768
maxfps0=0
initts0=0

Usually Alt+Enter puts most dos games into windowed mode doesn't this work for Etherlords?

I don't particularly like the small screen I get put it's good as a quck method to switch screens without the game crashing on me.

Etherlords is NOT a DOS game.

Anyway, did someone manage to solve this problem? Alt-tabbing in Etherlords games?