Stop Office from automatically maximizing minimized documents

Windows users are aware of a handy shortcut – WinKey+M that readily minimizes all your open windows, including Office documents to the Windows Taskbar. But has it happened to you that the moment you click the Microsoft Word icon to open another Word file the previously minimized Word file switches to full view i.e., maximized?  If you face this issue, here is a way to stop minimized Office Word documents from maximizing automatically.

Stop Office from automatically maximizing minimized documents

If you have a minimized document in Microsoft Word and try to open a new document in the same both the new and the minimized document are opened/maximized. The same could happen in Microsoft Excel as well.

I happened to stumble upon a thread accidentally which proposes to make changes in the Registry Editor to solve the problem. If you do not mind making changes to your Registry Editor, back up your Registry and then proceed further.

Type, ‘regedit’ in Seach box and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.

When opened, navigate to the following path –

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\command

Double-click on Default and add the “/q” switch to (Default) at the end.

The original Value Name is ‘Default’ and Value Data is:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Root\Office16\WINWORD.EXE" /n "%1"

add the “/q” command in ‘Value Data’ field by double-clicking the ‘Default’ key and changing it. It should look like this-

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Root\Office16\WINWORD.EXE" /q /n "%1"

Exit the Registry Editor and restart your computer.

Once done, you’ll notice that the startup screen no longer shows up. Plus, when you open a document, minimize, then open other windows and minimize each time the new window doesn’t bring the others back up.

I hope this works for you!

Read: How to make all windows open maximized or full-screen always.