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???