[BetterRed]

@eschwartz - Firstly, I normally start calibre from a pinned task bar icon, the start window is always what it was when I closed calibre - normally full width, 3/4 height, at top of screen.

I created a fresh desktop shortcut and changed the Properties->Shortcut->Run property as follows

I set it to Maximised, calibre started at its default window size!
I set it to Normal, calibre started started in a full screen window!
I set it to Minimised, it started with no window, when I clicked the task bar icon, calibre came up a full screen window - makes sense that was the last used.

I went through that same sequence (Maximised, Normal, Minimised) and got a different result. Maximised was full screen, Normal was default size, and Minimised came up in my full width, 3/4 height, last used window size !!

In other words, I can reproduce the 'erratic' behaviour you are reporting.

I did the same thing with fresh desktop shortcuts for firefox, chrome, xplorer², evernote, conemu and PDF XChange - the setting of Properties->Shortcut->Run behaved as I one would expect, Maximised started in a full screen window, Normal started in default (or last used), Minimised would expand to default (or last used).

Seems to me that the 'problem' is peculiar to calibre.

BR