I am running IE 8. When I click a link on a page that opens a new browser window, the new window opens in minimized size. I must manually maximize each time. I searched this forum for solutions, and as a result I:

1. Tried maximizing manually, then holding the "Shift" key and clicking the "X" in the top right window, which should force the app to remember to open maximized. This did not solve the problem.

2. Tried using the manual resize with a new window (click and hold the lower right corner of the window and make it full size.) This did not solve the problem either.

In each case, I restarted the computer.

What is mind-boggling is that the minimized size to which the browser windows now opens is a size I manually set ONCE, and now it is seemingly locked forever.

What more can I do to get new browser windows to open in maximimized size.

Thanks!

There are other limits on the number of Internet Explorer open windows. Everything here assumes you have at least 1 GB or RAM.

Assuming that you took the steps that I outlined in my previous post then you have gotten rid of the system limitations on the number of open windows. Internet Explorer will limit you in other ways, including memory leaks and handle leaks. First I will describe some of the things that cause problems, then I will mention a couple of fixes. Unfortunately, the fixes aren’t that good.

First, if you’ve got a lot of RAM and you made the changes you should really be able to open 200 – 400 or more tabs spread across multiple windows. As time goes on from the reboot and you open and close windows then the limit goes down.

First it’s important to distinguish between two copies of Internet Explorer running, and two IE windows open. If you click on the IE shortcut twice from the desktop, you have two separate copies of Internet Explorer running. If you click on the IE shortcut once, then go to that window and click on File – New Window, or right click on something and click on open in new window, then you have two windows open, but it’s only one copy of IE. Task manager can help you see this.

Any given instance of IE seems to crap out somewhere between 500 – 800 mb. This could translate into between 20 – 200 + tabs depending on the complexity of each each window that you have open. Once you reach this magical limit, IE will just suddenly lock up, with no chance to fix it.

Here’s a fun little test. Open IE, go to google, then open task manager, and note how much memory is being used. Don’t do anything else in the google window. Now in that same instance of IE open several tabs to some complex sites, and actually navigate around in those sites for several hours. Now close all the tabs except for the original google tab, then go to task manager. What has happened. Your original copy of IE that started out using 30 MB is now using 90 MB. This can happen with any version of IE, and is really not a bug in IE, even though it seems like it. Discussion of why that is, is best left for another venue.

When you close that copy of IE you get back most, but not all of that RAM. In fact, I’ve seen my system have over 500 MB of leaked RAM after a few weeks of being in and out of IE without rebooting.

Here’s what you can do to help some if you tend to have lots of open windows (all of these assume the proper version of IE):

1) The most important thing is to have multiple instances of IE open. Don’t open an instance for every window you want to have open, but try to generally limit yourself to 20 or 30 tabs per instance of IE. If the window has been open a long time then reduce those numbers.

2) If you have a window that you have a lot of open tabs in, and you’ve worked in the window for several hours or days, then you can close the window and tell it to reopen these tabs the next time you open IE, then reopen IE. That way you get a fresh start on part of the memory leaks.

3) From time to time look in task manager and see if any window is starting to use over 400 mb. If so, it’s time to do something so that you don’t crash the window. Close some tabs, or close and reopen the window as mentioned above.

4) If you have a window that has a lot of tabs and it represents lots of work to get there, you can set a bookmark by using the add tab group to favorites command. Of course this loses the window history, but at least would allow you to go back to all your open windows.

5) Where possible, try to reboot your system every few weeks.

Some of these problems can manifest in other applications besides IE, but they tend to happen more often in IE and be more visible.

I personally have some windows that I’ve had open for as long as a few months with a dozen or more tabs open, and I typically have over 100 tabs open spread across several windows. It’s not unusual for me to have 200 tabs open.

By taking the steps outlined in my previous post and this one, you can really expand your use of windows and tabs. Now all you have to do is to find a good reason to have that many open at once.