Minute windows (of the computer variety)

[alison]

In recent weeks, my laptop (operating Windows XP) has taken to launching everything in minute windows (all the same size as the minimised Windows Live Messenger), which as you can imagine is really annoying. Does anyone happen to know how to persuade it not to, please? I thought it was something to do with dragging the sides of the window to something larger, but that hasn't worked

[trog]

AFAIK with XP, the first window you open will be exactly the same size as the last window closed. So closing a fully maximumised window last, will let you to have a new maximum sized window next time. If you right click, for example, the IE shortcut and select properties, there is an option to set run to maximised.

 

Another way is to use regedit to force every window maximised.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer] "MaximizeApps"=dword:00000001

 

[alison]

Thanks, Trog. I wonder if it's me leaving Live Messenger open (because it's quite tricky to shut off) that does it? Will have a try over the next few days.

[alison]

A rather belated thank you to the Balletcoer who pointed me in the direction of this article, http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/reset-internet-explorers-window-size-in-windows-xp/463, which is a more complex version of what I was trying to do. With a few tweaks, the "Ctrl" version appears to work for me, provided you only have the one IE window open when doing it!

 

Hoping it will work for all the other programs which have since taken to minimising themselves too.