Windows lost my windows!

November 11, 2006 10:16 PM

WinXP: Full screen, windowed, minimized: two out of three ain't bad, I suppose.

Some applications in WinXP remember their window locations (likely in the registry) from invocation to invocation. Somehow or other, a couple of my apps have gotten screwed up so that whatever is stored for the windowed location, it's not on my screen. I can run those programs full-screen, and I can minimize them to the task bar. From both of those states it's possible for me to tell it to go to windowed mode, but nothing appears on screen if I do so.

However, Windows clearly does think that the mode has changed. The right-click menu for the icon on the task bar changes so that the "move" and "resize" choices are enabled, which is not the case for the full-screen or minimized modes. However, nothing I've tried (including messing with the "move" and "resize" choices) actually makes the window for the app appear.

This has happened for "Spider Solitaire" and for "Flash 8 Basic". Any idea what the hell I did to create this weird mode for those apps, and even more importantly, any ideas on how to undo it and get the windows back? (I'm willing to hack the registry if that's what it takes, as long as I have very specific instructions on what to look for and what to change.)

posted by Steven C. Den Beste to computers & internet (5 answers total)

Ah, I have the mojo. Activate the window (click on the taskbar tab) and press Alt-Space-M. Now your arrow keys will nudge the window around. If you just hit the arrows and then start moving your mouse around, the window will be attached to your pointer. Very handy if (like me) you have two monitors, but #2 is not on all the time.

Not sure what you've done to get it like that though, unless you had a second monitor at one point.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:25 PM on November 11, 2006

I have only had that happen (and resolved it the same as..) when I had a second monitor, such as Rock Steady said.
posted by SirStan at 10:27 PM on November 11, 2006

Mr. Steady, you are a genius.

It worked for Spider Solitaire, but not for Flash 8. I'm becoming convinced that Flash 8 simply refuses to work in any mode except full-screen. Alas.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:35 PM on November 11, 2006

Press the Shift key while closing the window should make it remember position and location for next time it opens.

It doesn't work in all cases, depends on the application (I just tried with Spider Solitaire and Explorer, works for both of them).
posted by Boobus Tuber at 4:38 AM on November 12, 2006

What I do is right click on their taskbar icon, then click 'move' and use the arrow keys. Works the same as alt+shift+m, but not in flash 8. Flash 8 (I have it on my machine) does behave differently depending on how you get the window into "move mode" If you use alt+shift+m it wont move, and then sometimes jerk to a weird position when you're done, while right clicking the taskbar button, and going to "move" will actually let you move it.

It's probably some bug with macromedia's strange windowing code. I've noticed that it does some strange things some times, like poping up modal dialog boxes behind "on top" windows, resulting in the whole program freezing.
posted by delmoi at 8:40 AM on November 12, 2006