I’ll bet this sounds familliar - you made the size of your program window slightly smaller, and now your program just insists on starting up in that same small window!
Here’s a 2 step process to force it to always open in a maximized state.
- Right-click the program shortcut or the start menu item and select ‘Properties’
- Under the ‘Run’ Menu – select maximized
That’s it! Your program will always open in a maximized state. Alternatively, you can of course select ‘minimized’ to have the opposite effect.
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:48 pm
You forgot to add that after you right-click the icon or shortcut, you must then choose “properties.”
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:00 am
Thanks Dennis – I’ve updated the post!
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:32 am
simple trick but useful
March 19th, 2007 at 12:50 am
Does not seem to work with Outlook
March 19th, 2007 at 12:57 am
Joe : It should… do you get the screen where it allows you to select Normal/Minimized/Maximized like described in the post?
March 20th, 2007 at 3:40 am
James, thanks so much! It works!
October 25th, 2007 at 8:48 am
How do I get “Google” to open up in a STANDARD size window every time? XP Home.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
@Jerry: just open your browser as maximized…. that should do the trick
December 31st, 2007 at 5:34 am
This solution works great if you are using a shortcut. My problem is that I have a program that updates files, then runs my game. My game is what I would like to run maximized. The program that preforms the updates has a place for me to enter a Additional Arguments (IE: -opengl). Is there such a command I can enter?
December 31st, 2007 at 8:42 am
@Jeramey: Try making a shortcut to the program, if not then I guess it depends on the program on whether it can run maximized
September 8th, 2008 at 1:44 am
There is such a command, it would be entered in the program name line within it’s properties, just need to find a glossary of available commands and syntax
September 12th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
None of my shortcuts have the
Normal/Minimized/Maximized available under Properties or anywhere else..
October 16th, 2008 at 5:35 am
All these “open and then close” solutions work only if you have a browser open when you click on a link. For example, if I do not have I.E. (or other)browser open, and I click on my Google tray-icon, it will open minimized, but if IE is open (maximized), and I click on it, it will open maximized. If it doesn’t, the “open and then close” routine will work . . until I exit IE . . then it won’t work anymore. So how do I get Google to open maximized without having to have a browser open???
May 27th, 2009 at 6:50 am
SHORTCUT’S DO NOT HAVE THAT SELECTION…
FOLLOW INSTRUCTION’S BELOW… IT’S EASY…
HOW TO,, PRESET THE SIZE OF SHORTCUT WINDOWS
RIGHT CLICK INTERNET EXPLORER,, GO TO PROPERTIES,, ON THE RUN LINE,, SET IT TO OPEN IN “NORMAL WINDOW”…
THEN OPEN IE-7 — SET TO RESTORE DOWN,, = “THE MIDDLE OF THE THREE BOXES AT THE TOP RIGHT”,, — THEN,, USING THE MOUSE,, DRAG THE WINDOW TO THE SIZE THAT ‘YOU WANT IT TO BE”…
CLOSE IE AND TRY SOME SHORTCUT’S… IT WORK’S ?? GO BACK TO IE PROPERTIE’S,, SET TO “OPEN MAXIMIZED”.