Force Windows Apps To Open As Maximized

One of my favorite Windows features  is window management. Specifically, the Snap feature is what I love. Windows 10 has improved it significantly for anyone working with a large monitor. Modern apps can also run full screen on the desktop. The snap feature is so popular that it causes envy among OS X users though they might not admit it. Apart from this very obvious and very awesome way to manage windows, the OS  offers a few obscure settings to manage windows better. If you”re looking for a way to always open an app with a fully maximized window, while wanting to make other selective apps open as normal sized and/or minimized windows, there is a simple trick to it that lets you do just that.

Pick the app you want to set to always open as maximized window. Open the app’s shortcut’s properties. You can this from both the desktop or from the taskbar depending where you’ve placed the shortcut. To open the properties of a shortcut on your desktop, right click it and select Properties from the context menu. To open the properties of shortcut on the taskbar, right click it, right click the application name and select Properties.

In the Shortcut tab of the properties window, look for the ‘Run’ option that has a drop-down menu to select options from. If you’ve never tampered with it before, or used any sort of app to customize the  state an app window is launched in, it should be set to ‘Normal Window’. The Normal Window option will remember the last size an app window was when it was closed and open it in the same state the next time you use the shortcut to launch it.

The Maximize and Minimize options are self-explanatory; select either one to always launch the app window in that state. Apply the changes and you’re all done.



This works on both Windows 7 and Windows 8. We tried it out on the Windows 10 developer preview but given that it is considerably buggy, the ‘Minimized’ option didn’t work.