Questions and Answers

These questions haven’t really been asked by anyone, but they are the questions that I would ask if I hadn’t written the damn thing.

Why don’t Windows Live Messenger windows fully cover the region?

WLM windows are really a bit larger than they seem at first glance. If you have one of these windows open, try focusing on it and pressing the Alt key. This will bring up the menu, and the hidden borders around the window will become visible. I don’t know why WLM is this way, but they are not the only program behaving in this way. In WLM you can click the Show menu button (it is unfortunately unlabeled), and check the option labeled Show the menu bar to always show these borders. You will probably need to do this for both the main window and a chat window, but then it should start showing up automatically show up when you start new conversations.

How does MaxTo know when windows are maximized?

It asks Windows nicely to tell it whenever windows maximize, and is given the opportunity to change what happens afterwards. It takes control and figures out where to place things.

Why are there two processes running?

To explain this thoroughly, we have to get somewhat technical. You will only ever see both MaxTo.exe and MaxTo64.exe running on a 64-bit version of Windows. When running on a 32-bit operating system, only MaxTo.exe will ever run.

On 64-bit operating systems, there are two kinds of processes: 32-bit and 64-bit. To allow MaxTo to gure out when maximization happens, we have to set a hook, which actually involves loading code that runs in a different process.

Since you cannot run 32-bit code in a 64-bit process — or the other way around — we actually need two different processes to set the hooks, one 64-bit version and one 32-bit version.

Why are there two DLLs then?

One is compiled for 64-bit processes (Hooker64.dll), and contains the callback function for the 64-bit hooks. The other (Hooker.dll) is for 32-bit processes. The DLLs are written in unmanaged code, since managed code cannot receive callbacks from system-wide hooks. The DLLs set and release the hooks, and forwards the messages to the MaxTo process.

Why can’t I maximize any windows, even when MaxTo isn’t running?

Note! This bug should be fixed in version 1.0, as MaxTo64.exe automatically terminates if it can’t find MaxTo.exe running.

Something probably went wrong when MaxTo exited, or you forcibly exited MaxTo through task manager or some other strange means. This only happens on 64-bit systems, where the 64-bit MaxTo64.exe process is left running after MaxTo has exited. You should make sure MaxTo isn’t running, by closing it normally from the notification area.

Then open Task manager (press Ctrl+Shift+Esc), and select MaxTo64.exe, and click End process. Conrm that you want to terminate the process. You can now restart MaxTo.

What does the “Noncommercial” part of the license mean?

It means that MaxTo is free for personal use. Anyone that wants to use MaxTo on a commercially owned computer needs to pay for a license. A commercial license is 25USD per year per computer. Significant discounts are given to educational institutions, and can be negotiated.