Recently a problem that I had never seen before cropped up on my main Windows XP system. It was affecting Microsoft Word as well as a couple of other programs. When I clicked the X in the upper right corner to close the program it closed the program – no problem. When I clicked the _ to minimize the program it minimized it – no problem. When I clicked the box in between the _ and the X it minimized the program instead of making the window smaller (like it is supposed to) so that I was unable to resize it. This is technically call the “Restore Down” button. I did some google searches for things like “xp restore down equals minimize,” “xp restore equals minimize,” xp minimize maximize restore down,” “xp restore window equals minimize” but didn’t find a solution. It looks like there are some Windows repair programs out there but I didn’t try any of those.
After some trial and error I found the solution. With Word and the other “problem programs” maximized I right-clicked on the taskbar and selected “Cascade Windows.” That put the problem windows in a neat order and the windows were not full size. At that point I was able to size them however I wanted to.
YES!! Problem solved!