The minimize button disappeared!

PS. I know this is a Leopard thread but I thought it might be helpful to know that this problem exists on 10.4.11 too 🙂

Yes, this bug sometimes happens to me in 10.4.11 after hiding the finder, getting switched to an open program, then switching back to the finder, all through the command-tab app switcher. I can't reproduce it reliably though, so perhaps there are other factors, but in my case I wasn't even using any full screen apps (let alone Leopard/Spaces).

One possible workaround is to use the Hide function (Cmd+H) instead of Minimize. As an added bonus you can unhide the application by just Cmd+Tabbing to it which is not the case with the minimized applications. Still its very frustrating - makes Spaces a somewhat incomplete feature.

(I am too running VMware (2.0 beta2) maximized on space 2 and the problem occurs on daily basis)

Message was edited by: icaci

I have VMWare Fusion full screen in space #2. If I switch to space #2, then back to space #1 all of my minimize buttons are unavailable. If I restart these applications, the minimize button appears again.

This is quite annoying.

I am having the same symptoms... Started in the last few days. Any ideas? Happens on my Macbook, but not on my iMac. It mainly seems to affect Firefox for me and other apps open at the time still have the Minimize button available. Double clicking on the top bar does nothing to help.

Hi there,
I've found a solution that works for me:
1. Go into your vm space and move the mouse to the top of the screen to display the vmware menu bar
2. Select another one of your spaces

You should notice the minimize button is enabled again.

HTH
Rob

This doesn't even work reliably. It sometimes works for me if I switch back using the keyboard shortcut. If I try to select the "Space" from the menu bar instead, the trick doesn't work.

Message was edited by: DotDitDot

I've got exactly the same problem. It's very frustrating. I'm a windows switcher and this bug has kinda taken the gloss of my move... Switching between VMWare using spaces causes the same problem with firefox and Apple Mail.

Do you think Apple will fix this problem?

I am having the same problem. Not only does the Minimize button disappear but the double click in the title bar stops working too.

I usually have two spaces, 1 for all applications except VMWare that is in space 2.

I have tried an experiment with putting Safari and Mail in Space 3. Here the minimize button does not disappear. The trouble only seems to occur in Space 1.

In addition to Safari and Mail, the problem occurs in iCal and NetNewsWire but not iPhoto, Word nor Excel!

Not sure whom we should expect to solve this. Apple or VMWare?

Same problem here. I didn't notice it before upgrading to Parallels 4 (whose windows, either Windows XP or Ubuntu, I open in Space 2).
Going from space 1 to space 2 and back disable the minimize button of applications (Mail and Safari) of space 1 and also minimizing to dock doesn't work anymore. However, as noted, new windows for these applications do work correctly.

This ONLY happens when one of the virtual machines of Parallels is working in Full Screen mode but not when in Window mode.

Keith Tizzard1 wrote:
Not sure whom we should expect to solve this. Apple or VMWare?

Clearly not specific to VMWare; Parallels in Full Screen mode does exhibit the same problem.
I don't know how VMWare works. Do you always have your virtual machines in Full Screen mode?

I used to have in full screen and that happened to me too. Lately I've been working with vm in window mode and seems it stopped.

rs

More info here:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/110750

I got annoyed enough with this issue that I wrote a tiny application to restore the minimize buttons. All it does is flip the UI state to hide the dock and then unhide it again immediately. There's no more than the slightest flicker and all the minimize widgets are re-enabled.

It's only two lines of code, but for those not inclined to write their own apps, I've made it available for everyone:

http://www.pyroteknix.org/MinFix.dmg

I just dropped it into the dock, and I click on it any time the minimize buttons disappear - it runs and quits again immediately, restoring the widgets.

Hope that helps someone.

Works very well for me. Thank you very much.