Problems with Iceweasel under XFCE

[brian]

Hi all,

My wife has finally decided to dump KDE (keeps locking up for her) and 
switch to XFCE as her desktop, but she's having a couple of problems 
which are driving me crazy. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful.

The facts are :-

1) We're both running the same OS, from the 64-bit Debian testing 
repositories, our sources.list are identical, and both systems are 
fully updated. The hardware is different, however - I can list the 
individual components if anyone thinks that's a factor, though it's 
hard to see how it could be.

2) If Pat uses KDE or GNOME, none of this happens, it's specific to XFCE.

3) I use XFCE, and I don't see the problems she experiences.

4) Under XFCE, Chromium (which she dislikes) works just fine, no 
problems whatever.

5) Using Iceweasel, the screen comes up in a semi-minimised state - I 
guesstimate it's about 250x150 on her 1280x1024 desktop. I CANNOT get 
it to go full screen, or even to a size that's usable. It just will 
not resize - trying to drag the corners has no effect. I expect that 
Iceweasel is v10.0.7, at least that's what it is on my PC, I can't get 
to the help menu to check it on Pat's PC.

6) There are also problems with the menus. She can click on the file 
menu (about all she can see) but the moment she moves the mouse down 
the dropdown list, the menu closes. The only way she can select any of 
the options is by using the cursor keys.


If all of this makes any kind of sense to anyone, I'd be grateful for 
any hints as to how to fix it. Pat INSISTS on using IceWeasel for 
browsing.


Brian.