Several months ago as I was working on my laptop I right-clicked the taskbar and accidentally clicked "Show windows side by side." I was immediately presented with an array of all five of the windows that I had open at the time: Two stacked on the left half of my screen and three stacked on the right half. I reviewed a few words out of my "Dark Dictionary," then promptly rearranged them as I wanted them with several in the background, out of sight. Later I shut down the laptop in the usual fashion by first saving all my data and exiting each program in its turn, then shutting down the laptop as a whole.
However, ever since that occasion, whenever I launch at least two of those original programs (and possibly one or two that weren't running on that fateful day), their respective windows open in the exact same, wrong location on the screen, and in the exact same, wrong size as they were immediately after I accidentally clicked "Show windows side by side" ,,, instead of the last custom resizing that I performed, or following the shortcuts/links parameters specified in the Shortcut tab of the Properties Menu in each program's shortcut/link on my desktop or taskbar.
Now, note the inconsistencies here. Not all the original programs are afflicted. Some of those original programs escaped the plague.
And, a few programs that weren't even running on the fateful day are afflicted anyway.
And, resizing them each time I run them doesn't stick. Every time I rerun them I have to readjust their sizes and positions on the screen.
And, bypassing the shortcuts/links doesn't solve the problem either. Running my word processor, for instance, from its "exe" file produces the same result as running it from a desktop link.
I used to think that the size and position of any program's window was determined on two levels: initially by the parameters specified in its shortcuts/links file; then by the customized position and size chosen by me during the normal course of optimizing my screen layout. But now it seems that MS Windows has a third, more basic level for determining the size and position of the subservient programs running under it.
If my hypothesis is true, how do I kill it? Or at least manage it? If my hypothesis is not true, do any of you have any suggestions for a better one?
Stan (Tarantzilla) Schultz