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restoring minimize and expand toggles in windows 10

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I'm in Windows 10. Was using it well (I'm not computer literate) and after several months of doing so found that the minimize and expand toggles had disappeared. My Firefox version is 44. I've stepped through the following:

Trouble shoot and diagnose Firefox problems - have reinstalled, refreshed 
 Went to Support Forum and deleted the xulstore.json file (Have trouble figuring out how to close and restart firefox)

None of this works. I love Firefox and have been using it for over 5 years maybe longer. But I'm really frustrated as I don't have tech skills.

Any help even with the basics like exit firefox, close firefox and restart firefox would help. A simple close or exit firefox switch would simplify all this for people like me. All I want is my Firefox browser with its basic functions back. Paul

I'm in Windows 10. Was using it well (I'm not computer literate) and after several months of doing so found that the minimize and expand toggles had disappeared. My Firefox version is 44. I've stepped through the following: Trouble shoot and diagnose Firefox problems - have reinstalled, refreshed Went to Support Forum and deleted the xulstore.json file (Have trouble figuring out how to close and restart firefox) None of this works. I love Firefox and have been using it for over 5 years maybe longer. But I'm really frustrated as I don't have tech skills. Any help even with the basics like exit firefox, close firefox and restart firefox would help. A simple close or exit firefox switch would simplify all this for people like me. All I want is my Firefox browser with its basic functions back. Paul

Chosen solution

Does it help to have the title bar visible?

You can toggle the title bar on/off via the "Title Bar" button at the bottom left in the Customize palette window.


You can try a different Windows theme and Windows background image (wallpaper) to see if that helps. Not all Windows themes seem to be compatible with current Firefox releases, so you may have to try out other themes if the one you currently use doesn't work as expected. If you use a non standard windows theme or made other appearance changes then try to revert those changes and use a (different) standard theme or Windows wallpaper.

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Chosen Solution

Does it help to have the title bar visible?

You can toggle the title bar on/off via the "Title Bar" button at the bottom left in the Customize palette window.


You can try a different Windows theme and Windows background image (wallpaper) to see if that helps. Not all Windows themes seem to be compatible with current Firefox releases, so you may have to try out other themes if the one you currently use doesn't work as expected. If you use a non standard windows theme or made other appearance changes then try to revert those changes and use a (different) standard theme or Windows wallpaper.

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Do you mean the minimize, restore/maximize, and close buttons that usually appear on the window frame at the upper right? Two initial thoughts:

  • Try the F11 function key to switch Firefox out of or into full screen view
  • As a temporary workaround, hold down the Alt key and tap the spacebar to get a menu with the three button actions

Usually if those buttons disappear in regular mode (not full screen), it is caused by Firefox being incompatible with your graphics card/chipset driver software; sometimes it can indicate a memory issue (Firefox maxing out on memory it can use).

To check on that first problem, could you test with hardware acceleration disabled:

"3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options

In the left column, click Advanced. On the right side, on the "General" mini-tab, uncheck the box for "Use hardware acceleration when available"

This takes effect the next time you exit Firefox and start it up again. Any difference?

Since hardware acceleration improves the appearance of fonts and animations, you may want to check whether any graphics card/chipset driver updates are available for your system. This article suggests safe ways to do that: Upgrade your graphics drivers to use hardware acceleration and WebGL.

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I used the F11 - no change The Alt key and tapping space bar didn't change anything either I turned off Acceleration closed Fire fox and restarted it - that didn't work

Your write up mentions Firefox could be incompatible with my graphics card/chipset driver. That could well be the answer. I have a 5 year old Asus laptop with Windows 7 that does not have this problem Where I do get it is on my 1 1/2 year old Asus desktop with Windows 10. When I boot up the desktop I get the following error

Could not load file or assembly 'mom.implementation' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

I checked what I could find on this error and ducked as soon as I saw that solutions involved messing around with drivers. That's way beyond my skill set. Could that be the problem?

By way of further back round, my use of Firefox is probably a little weird - 3 windows with three or four tabs open in each. Whether that could be causing Firefox memory problem?Tab contents are New York Times. Washington Post, CBC News, Flight Aware and a couple of Environment Canada weather sites. Most of these tabs do not auto refresh. When I first boot up I use the Restore Previous Session capability. My number of windows and tab contents on the laptop are the same as on the desktop and as I say, my laptop doesn't have the problem. Paul

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Hi Paul, the F11 was just to see whether Firefox was in full screen view and switch out if it was.

The Alt + Spacebar is an alternate way to access the commands of the missing buttons. Did the menu appear at the upper left corner of the window?

I'm not sure what to say about the startup error you're seeing. Windows has some self-repair tools, but I'm not personally very familiar with Windows 10.

Your window and tab count sounds very reasonable, shouldn't be a problem.

Perhaps some of cor-el's suggestions in the first reply will be more helpful: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1111934#answer-849266