Is there still no way to play Stronghold / Stronghold Crusader in windowed mode?
I'm quite sure many would want to play it on normal aspect ratio. If anyone has any idea of how to play it windowed, please share with us. Tested and not working methods include ALT+Enter, -window, -windowed and -w command lines.

Wasn't that Ctrl+Tab or Shift+Tab or something?

Is there a .ini file in your Stronghold gamefolder? Can you please post it?

Many, if not most, graphics cards allow you to change your scaling options, so that resolutions are displayed without stretching (with black bars on the sides instead).
For my nVidia GeForce 8600m, using Vista, I did the following:
1) Run the nVidia Control Panel
2) Go to Display > Change flat panel scaling
3) Go to "2. When using a resolution lower than my display's native resolution..."
4) Select "Use NVIDIA scaling with fixed-aspect ratio"
5) Click Apply.
All done! Now I can play Stronghold and anything else from GOG without ugly stretching distortions.
Chances are, if your graphics card / driver / display allows this, you'll find something similar under your card's control panel or advanced options.
Good luck!

No. It does create a config file in \my documents\ but it's just a string of gibberish, like: "nulnulnul player1 nulnulnulshonul"
Cmwsjnb's suggestion seems to be the best one. I'm sure there's a similar solution for ATI users, and a fair few modern panels can do it themselves.

Solution with tutorial : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOKZz7RJGUQ
there are similar programs too but that worked for me so I didnt try them

It doesn't work for me. Has anyone succeeded in playing it windowed with this program?

It works! brilliant! thank you!

it doesnt work :(

watch out theres a trojan in the file the youtube video has linked.. DONT download it
im gona see if i can find a fresh and clean file from another source

I use a Virtual Machine, as long as you have a fairly good PC it'll work fine. I know virtual box works but I've never used the M$ 'Virtual PC' , attached screenshot shows it working tho.
For Windows (XP SP3 & later) users:
[url=]http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=28C97D22-6EB8-4A09-A7F7-F6C7A1F000B5&displaylang=en[/url]
For most operating systems:
[url=]http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads[/url]
hope this helps.

it works thanks for ur help =)

Very late reply, but I'm new to GoG and my interest in Stronghold was also just revived.

This appears to work for me, so far:

It's the same program as linked to in that YouTube video earlier in the thread, but this download checks out as clean with Malwarebytes and Avira and Comodo and WinPatrol also haven't caught it doing fishy things:
http://www.filefront.com/13838785/D3DWindower-English/

1. Extract to your Stronghold Crusader folder.
2. Open D3DWindower, click the + sign and select "Stronghold Crusader.exe".
3. Click the "Settings..." button (right of the computer icon).
3a. Tick the 'Use Windowed Mode' box under the Common tab.
3b. Go to the Direct Input tab and tick the following: Use Direct Input, Cursor Clip, SetCursor Pos, GetCursor Pos.
(These settings mean you have to alt-tab to get out of the Stronghold window, but without them, the map will autoscroll and basically make it a major pain to play, if not downright impossible. Game pauses when you alt-tab, which can be both a good and a bad thing).
3c. Click OK.
4. Click the computer icon to start the game.

Caveats:
Only tested on Vista 32bit.
Tested with retail Stronghold Crusader v1.1 from the SH Warchest (for now. I suspect I'll end up getting the GoG version).
Only tested on the tutorial and the first mission of the first campaign so far.

Note:
There appear to be some minor graphics glitches, but I'm not really sure they haven't always been there and I've only seen them when moving a 'ghosted' building over the terrain before setting it down prior to building it. It's quite possible that fiddling with the settings may fix them, if they are due to D3DWindower.
I haven't tried D3DWindower with Stronghold, but it seems very likely it'll work.

Edit: Seems to work fine with the GOG version of Stronghold too.

Thanks but my card won't let me do this. I use an Nvidia GT 220 with Win7-64. My monitor is a HP 2159 set on 1920 x 1080. I see the option to do what you are saying in my Nvidia Control Panel. But when I try to change to "Use NVIDIA scaling with fixed-aspect ratio" and then click "Apply" it doesn't save the change. The option reverts back to its default. Do you know how I can get around this?

Thanks!

It's been a long time since the last post here. But I think that a lot of people are still dealing with that problem. Stronghold Crusader is an awsome game and I am proud to present you a solution for that widescreen problem. I'm playing Stronghold in a 1366x768 resolution and before I found the resolution I also had this black bars right and left the game when playing. It all got to do with gpu scaling. It works especially well in case you have a intel hd graphics solution and you may have a ati or nvidia card as well. Now here is how I did it:

1. go to intel control panel
2. go to general settings under display
3. go to scaling (last point) --> and that's where my problem started

1366 x 768 is a crappy resolution and does NOT offer you to choose full screen scaling
then I simply changes my resolution to 1360 x 768 and suddenly the scaling option popped up (you may try any other resolution as well if you dont get it on first try)

4. Select "scale to fullscreen" --> problem solved :D

what i have encountered is that after you set your resolution back to your monitors native, the scaling option of the intel hd will remain activated. from that point of view intel graphics seams to have more options available than most ati or nvidia control panels. Especially notbook users report to have a very crapy control panel and can not choose the display setting folder. If you own a workstation you could also be able to select the gpu scaling in the nvidia or ati options. intel seams not to have that sort of problem with its panel.

Hope that helped a lot of you guys and you are now playing in widescreen :)