An action performed in the GUI operating systems to hide a window but keep the program running in the background is ?

Answer Details

In a graphical user interface, a window can be temporarily removed from view while the program running inside it keeps executing in the background. The specific action that shrinks a window down to an icon or a taskbar entry, hiding it from the main screen without closing the program or stopping its processes, is called minimizing the window. Once minimized, a user can click the icon or taskbar entry at any time to restore the window exactly as it was left.

The word "hide" is not the technical term used in graphical operating systems for this action; it is simply a general English word, whereas the operating system's actual command for this behaviour is minimize. Multitasking describes the operating system's broader ability to run several programs at the same time, which is the underlying capability that allows a minimized program to keep running, but multitasking itself is not the specific action of hiding a window. Maximizing does the opposite of what is described here: it expands a window to fill the entire screen rather than shrinking it out of view.

A quick way to keep these terms straight is that minimize hides a window (down to the taskbar) while keeping the program alive, maximize enlarges a window to full screen, and multitasking is the general ability of the system to keep multiple programs running regardless of whether their windows are visible.