When I first open either Internet or Windows Explorer, it always opens
to fill the entire screen: however, the maximise button is still
available i.e. the window isn't 'maximised'. Clicking 'maximise' of
course makes no real visible difference, apart from not being able to
reposition and resize the window.

If I reduce either Explorer to a decent window size, I can reopen
instances of Explorer to that same size - untill I run Internet
Explorer maximised, in which case, a newly opened Windows Explorer
reverts to the full-screen view, as above. If I close IE, with WinEx
open in its full-screen view (as above), or recently closed down from
that view, when I re-open IE, it too will be full-screen i.e. but not
maximised.

This is damn silly.

Any ideas?