Love it or hate it, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), by most estimates, still commands the lion’s share of the browser market. That means a lot of people spend a lot of their day using the browser, and a lot of people encounter problems they’d like to solve. Here are a few.
Q: Internet Explorer opens up in a different size and position each time I start it. I would like it to open up maximized. How can I do this?
A: Internet Explorer — and most other web browsers — remembers the size and position it was last in, and it launches in the exact same size and position when restarted. It’s likely that you or some process resized or moved the browser window before closing it. It’s important to note that IE and other browsers remember the state of just the last browser window closed, so if you have five browser session open, it’s only the last one that is closed that will be stored for the next launch of the browser.
There are a couple of ways you can force IE to open in a maximized state each time, regardless of the size and position it was last in when closed. First, go to your Start menu and locate the Internet Explorer icon. Right-click it, and select Properties from the pop-up menu. From the resulting Internet Explorer Properties dialog box, make sure the Shortcut tab is selected, and then from the Run drop-down list box, select “Maximized.” Click Apply and OK.
You could also download and use the free IE New Window Maximizer (http://bit.ly/c6uPXw), which will make it easy to do the same thing. The utility also gives you several other options over how IE launches, including the ability to open a new IE window in the background and to automatically close…