MSIE sucks! That is unless you enjoy being succeptible to nasty things like Active-X viruses and popup windows. And it's standards compliance is weak at best.

You should be using Firefox.

 

Do this:

1. You must close ALL Internet Explorer windows, also make sure there are no instances running in the background by checking Task Manager (Ctrl-Shift-Esc --> Processes tab)
2. Open 1 IE Window
3. Resize, don't maximize, so that the window covers the entire screen
4. Close IE

IE should now open not in maximized but the size should cover the entire screen.

 

Ok here is what I was doing wrong

As I said if I launched from the desktop, it opened the browser maximised so I was opening a new link which would be at the smaller, default size, then stretching that window and closing both then trying again.

To get it to work I had to launch from the desktop, press restore down, then stretch that screen to the full screen size.

Looking back at some of the directions I was given this is what I was told to do but I simply misunderstood the exact details
<-----Bonehead!

So all good now I suppose for all of the help.

p.s. Should I switch to firefox anyway? What are the advantages?

 

tweder et. al. will disagree with me, but personally I don't feel there's a reason to change unless you want to make a political statement.

* Firefox features tabbed browsing, which some people really like, but I feel that you've pretty much got that in Windows anyway since all your browsers appear as buttons on your taskbar.

* There's a pop-up blocker, see my comment below on that.

* Its renderer IS more standards-compliant, but since IE and the older Netscape browsers are the defacto standard anyway it makes no real difference - coding to the literal standards and ignoring what people use is just silly. I should know; I spent years banging my head against Netscape bugs.

If you want pop-up blocking in IE either grab the free Google toolbar (which is great, lots of neat tools) or get the Windows XP Service Pack 2 when it's released in the next two or three months (I'm running the SP2 beta and it works like a charm).

If ActiveX controls scare you you can always turn them off in IE's security settings.

* Flame-retardant suit ON *

 

I could go on all day, but this list sums it up pretty well:

http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/why/