Outlook 2003 - New messages always open full screen

I have Office 2003 Professional and use Outlook 2003 for e-mail. Until recently (several weeks ago), when I would open a new e-mail message it would always open in a small screen. Now they always open maximized (full screen). If I try to reset it, it's OK for that one message but the next time it will open maximized.

I suspect it has something to do with Word or some Office update as it is set to use Word to edit e-mails (how it's always been configured).

I don't see anything in Outlook 2003 options for the new mail screen size. I've tried System Restore and whatever has changed is not affected by System Restore, unless I haven't went back far enough (and I can't go any further than the oldest restore point I have).

Is there a Registry hack that will "fix" this?

check the shortcut and look at properities and run box

if it says max there it is

That is for the Outlook program, not the new "messages". The program does open in "normal window". The new messages do not open in the same size, they open as full screen.

It is related to Word. If I uncheck the box about using Word to edit e-mails then it opens in the smaller "normal window" size.

I've also deleted the 'normal.dot" files in case that was causing it, but it wasn't.

here's an old one:

have you tried to set the size of the window the way you want then hold shift and close?

That didn't work.

Any other suggestions?

Still looking for help on this.

Thanks

Hello,

As far as my knowledge there is no such setting what ever the last setting was it will retain that the next time. For example if you Maximize the E-mail then close next time you open it will open maximized and vise-versa. That is a Windows OS setting that is universal.

Hope this helps,
Captain

It's something in MS Word or an add on for MS Word that is causing new messages to open full screen. As I noted before, if I uncheck MS Word to be the default editor then new message windows open the same size as the Outlook Program.

This started happening several weeks ago and I don't have a System Restore point old enough to try. I suspect it has something to do with Windows Live add ons for MS Word, but I've uninstalled all the Live applications and it's still there.

An Office "Repair" didn't "repair" it either.

fireberd said:

It's something in MS Word or an add on for MS Word that is causing new messages to open full screen. As I noted before, if I uncheck MS Word to be the default editor then new message windows open the same size as the Outlook Program.

This started happening several weeks ago and I don't have a System Restore point old enough to try. I suspect it has something to do with Windows Live add ons for MS Word, but I've uninstalled all the Live applications and it's still there.

An Office "Repair" didn't "repair" it either.

Click to expand...

Could be !! Add-in used to cause lot of strange issues. What happens when you open a new word document ??

It opens in full screen, which is what I want. If I resize the Word screen to open in a smaller screen then the Outlook new message (or reply/forward) screen opens in the smaller size that I want.

That is logical and would seem to be the way it works, however "once upon a time" it didn't work that way. It didn't matter that Word was defaulted to opening in a full screen, Outlook new/reply/forward panels always opened in the smaller sized screen, regardless of the Word opening in full screen.

Whatever was updated or added has caused the Outlook new/reply/forward to follow whatever Word does. If I could find what it was I would be happy. I've deleted Windows Live applications, that were recently added or updated, and that didn't make a difference. I've went back as far as I can go with System Restore (two weeks ago) and that isn't far enough or whatever is causing it is not affected by System Restore. I deleted all the "normal.dot" files and then opened Outlook and a new message panel but that still opened full screen and resizing didn't make any difference so it appears the normal.dot template file was not the problem.

This may seem like the obvious, but why don't you uncheck the MS Word so that it is not associated. You said that it worked OK that way. I have 2003 and new messages always open in the Outlook pane unless I double click and then it opens in full pane.

If I do not use Word, which I have done for years, then I don't get the Word spell checker and some other formatting. I know I can uncheck that and it works the way I want and the way it used to work, with Word, but that is not fixing the problem.

I've removed just everything I can see or think would affect it and it hasn't made any difference.

re image all

I've got an Acronis disk backup for 0430 (and a two later backups) but that is a last resort.

After looking at what has been done since the oldest available full hard drive backup, I'm going to have to "live" with the issue until I can find a fix.