How to Always Start FAR Manager in Maximized Window

After installing FAR manager on my Windows 10 PC, I encountered a small annoyance – whenever I launched it, it always started in the normal small window and I had to use the hotkey Alt+F9 to switch to the maximized window. Even though this works, it became annoying after a while.

I could not find any settings within FAR manager to make it always launch in the maximized mode, so I figured out some of the tools provided by the Windows operating system itself to make it run maximized always.

There are two very easy ways to make the FAR manager always start in the maximized window:

1. Using a shortcut to FAR manager

  1. First of all you have to create a shortcut to the FAR manager on your Windows desktop. If you have installed FAR manager on your PC, then you already have a desktop shortcut. In the case of portable version, you have to locate FAR.exe, select it, copy it (press Ctrl+C) and then right-click anywhere on Windows Desktop and select Paste Shortcut from the right-click context-menu.
  2. Right-click on the newly created shortcut and choose Properties from the context-menu.Start FAR Manager Maximized
  3. In the Properties window, select the Shortcut tab, and choose Maximized for the Run setting. Click on the OK button to save the settings.Start FAR Manager Maximized
  4. Now if you double-click on this shortcut, FAR manager will be launched maximized.

2. Using a small batch script

  1. Open Microsoft Notepad or Notepad++ and create a new file.
  2. In the new text file, copy-paste the following contents:
    start /MAX d:\far\far.exe

    Start FAR Manager Maximized

  3. Change the full path of far.exe from d:\far\far.exe to wherever your far.exe is located.
  4. Save the file as a batch script file, for example, as run_far.bat.
  5. Now whenever you launch FAR manager using this batch script, it will be launched in the maximized mode. You can create a shortcut to this batch script on your Windows desktop for easy launching.

If you have not already installed FAR manager on your Windows PC, you can get it from https://farmanager.com/. It is also available as a portable application.