Windower

Supposedly Squares-Enix has banned players for using this program, but I don't believe that they have regarding a normal player that just wanted the ability to alt+tab out of the game to check things online or to increase their viewing distance and other small graphical tweaks! {FFXI was updated and able to be run in Windowed mode a little over a yr ago, and I've used Windower for more than 3 yrs during my time playing and never had any issues.} Though using this is at your own risk and discretion...

Those that have gotten banned from using this are more than likely gil farmers, botters and those trying to cheat and then they go to forums all over and complain about being banned for using this program.

Anyway...

Here is the link to the Windower Website where you can learn all about it. Its quite simple to use and setup, and has a ton of options. Not gonna link all that here, but I will talk about the few options that I use with it:

• ChatMon ~ {In case I'm tabbed out, AFK, etc it lets me know when I'm being summoned!}
  It plays sounds based on chat events in game that pertain to you. It will play a sound anytime someone says your name in linkshell, party, say, emote, or shout. It will play a sound when someone does a normal /emote to you. It will play a sound when someone examines you, and finally, it will play a sound when someone invites you to party.
  
• ConsoleBG ~ {As described...}
  This plugin basically puts a configurable background behind the console to make it much easier to read the console text. This helps a great deal when in bright areas.
  
• Distance ~ {Helpful for anything ranged and running away from aggro...hehe!}
  Shows you the exact distance between you and your target. This is useful for situations like rangers who have to shoot from a certain distance. The distance is displayed in the upper right hand corner next to the Network Status indicators.
  
• DrawDistance ~ {You can see examples of what this does in the public FFXI forums!}
  Enables you to set a Draw Distance higher than FFXI normally allows, allowing you to see the enviroment farther without the fog effect, making the game look more beautiful. {Hit the Insert Key while in FFXI to bring up the console, then type in the box drawdistance set 20 for double the viewing distance or 40 for quadruple the viewing distance.}
  
• SSOrganizer ~ {Very useful....me loves taking screenshots...}
  Screenshots are moved to a new folder that will put it in a categorized fashion by date and zone taken!
  
• TimeStamp ~ {Cause its always good to know when something has happened!}
  Adds a time stamp to all lines in your chat log, as many people enjoy such a feature.
  
• TParty ~ {Useful for parties so you don't have to keep asking certain players their TP for skillchains!}
  Shows the TP and MP of all party/alliance members, as well as the HP% of a targeted mob.
  

One thing of note ~ check the configuration settings in the windower folder and make sure you set your screen resolution here if its not already or FFXI will load oddly and not fill the screen properly!

Quote :

#Windower Console Key
console-key = insert

#PlayOnlineViewer Language (JP, US, or EU)
language = US

#Final Fantasy XI window resolution
x-resolution = 1600
y-resolution = 1200

Glad I'm not the only one. :D

Good program used it my self back in the day