Phil,

My experience with Google Earth betas has been that when it first opens, it is always in windowed mode. I then maximize it. Then I hit F11 to go full-window. Then I hit F11 again. Instead of going back to maximized, GE goes to Windowed. It is very consistent in this behaviour. I've posted msgs on this back when I first encountered it, but it is still the same. It's a very small complaint so I've pretty much ignored it of late.
Ernie