Have you tried the old standby? Open the window you want maximized, put your cursor on one of the 4 edges, and drag out to the edge of the screen. Repeat with each of the other 3 edges. Close the window and reopen. It should be maximized, if not, close and reopen again. XP and Vista are programmed to change window size this way. (I think Microsoft may have changed this for Windows 7 though, to the method described by richc46 above.)